Monuments/Historical Markers
 

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Note: Most of the pictures are thumbnails...please click on them for a larger image.
All pictures were taken by Janine Crandell, unless otherwise noted.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument

Dedicated: October 6, 1899 by President William McKinley
Sculptor: Frederick "Fritz" Triebel (1865-1944)
Granite base/shaft quarried in New England
Bronze figures cast in Pistojo, Italy, in 1898
Height: 68 feet

     The idea for the 1899 "Soldiers and Sailors Monument" began in 1892 with the Ladies' Memorial Day Association. As the Civil War veterans ranks grew thinner and the passion of patriotism seemed to be waning Association president Lucie B. Tyng wrote, "It came into the hearts of those who were left to build a soldier's monument in our city which would last for all time, and tell our children and children's children our loving gratitude to these brave men who took their lives in their hands and went forth to vindicate and sustain our government in its hour of peril. "

     Fritz Triebel, internationally-recognized native Peorian, was contacted at his studio in Rome, Italy, and commissioned to create the monument in 1893. He also served as Superintendent of Sculpture at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago that year.

     The Ladies' Memorial Day Association raised forty thousand dollars from various picnic fund-raisers, children's penny drives, the Peoria county Board of Supervisors, the City of Peoria, and the Martin Kingman Plow company.

     This site was chosen because it was where the famous Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas encounter occurred in October 1854, and where Peoria's 1866 War Memorial once stood.

Defense of the flag

     Triebel named his sculpture "Defense of the Flag" and wrote in 1896:

• Defense of the flag has six figures with the central figure been the captain cheering his companions and holding high the union colors after a successful battle.

• The cruel ball wounds the lieutenant who falls on the arm of his Captain.

• The drummer boy gently protects with one hand his wounded officer while the other has drawn his pistol ready to fire on the fleeing enemy.

• Back of the drummer Boy is an infantry-man ready to shoot while the trumpeter gives the signal to repose arms as the battle is won.

• The other figure is the wounded artilleryman.

     At the southern side stands the classic heroic figure of a woman with her pen poised writing "We will write on page of granite what they wrought on field of battle." Named "History," but popularly known as "Columbia," the trade figure was posed for by Triebel's wife, Santina. The title of the statue is "History Writing the Scroll of Fame. " A second casting of her can be found on the Mississippi State War Memorial Monument in Vicksburg.

     An American bald eagle with an eleven-foot wing spread is perched atop a globe at the tip of the granite shaft. A tin box containing 1890's artifacts was placed in the Globe and a copper box of similar items was buried in the granite base.

List of Names Inscribed on the Monument

President William McKinley and staff visiting Peoria for the dedication
of the Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Courthouse Square in 1899
submitted by Steve Slaughter
 

Jubilee College two miles to the north was established by Philander Chase, First Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Illinois, as one of the state's early institutions of higher learning. First students were received in 1840 and the school continued until 1868. Jubilee College is now a state park.	Jubilee College

Robert Ingersoll, an "advanced thinker", was considered one of the greatest orators of his time.
The statue was unveiled at Glen Oak Park on October 28, 1911. Thousands of people from all
over the U. S. were there, including the widow of Colonel Robert Ingersoll and his daughters.
Charles Frederick Adams, great grand-son of John Quincy Adams, gave a speech at the ceremony.

Christopher Columbus Statue in Laura Bradley Park
Sculptor: Alfons Pelzer
Manufacturer: W. H. Mullens Co. Salem, Ohio
Dedicated: Oct. 15, 1902
Rededicated: Oct. 13, 1984
Renovation by Sunderland Associates

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Pimiteoui meaning "Fat Lake." Illinois Indian name for Peoria Lake.
Here passed Jolliet and Marquette in 1673.
Established near the lake were Ft. Creve Coeur 1680;
Ft. St. Louis 1691-92; Old Peoria's Fort and Village 1730;
Peoria's 1778; Ft. Clark, 1813;
French Trading House "Opa Post" before 1818.
Americans settled on the site of the city of Peoria in 1819.

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Plaque signifying the position of home-plate
on the former athletic field of the Bradley Univ. campus.