Nov. 9—BEMIDJI — A new monument will be unveiled at the Bemidji Veterans Memorial on Monday, Nov. 11, as the community celebrates Veterans Day.
The ceremony will take place at 130 Minnesota Ave. at 1 p.m. SW, next to the Beltrami County History Center. The monument will be the largest part of the current monument, with a height of more than 2.5 meters.
“I think people are going to be very surprised and pleased,” said Gary Guggenberger, chairman of the Veterans Memorial Committee.
The monument consists of three panels and an embedded bronze medallion. The name “Bemidji Veterans Memorial” is prominently engraved on a large center panel.
It also features an embedded bronze medallion embedded above the monument’s name on the center panel and the Great Seal of the United States. The other two panels feature a vertical American flag and a tribute with the engraved message “Honoring Those Who Served.”
The Freedom Defenders Veterans Memorial was dedicated in May 2006. It was turned over to the city
Bemidji in 2008
and later renamed Bemidji Veterans Memorial.
The name stone was placed last month. It was built with Minnesota Mesabi Black granite from a quarry near Babbitt by Coldspring, a company with a history dating back to 1898.
When the United States entered World War II, Coldspring – then known as Cold Spring Granite Company – pursued war contracts and converted its factories to process steel instead of stone, and workers who had been quarries became welders. The company manufactured ship bottoms and hull parts for the war.
Coincidentally, Guggenberger grew up in Cold Spring, Minnesota, and was a classmate of Patrick Alexander, who became president of Cold Spring Granite. Now retired, Patrick was able to put Guggenberger in touch with the company’s chief designer.
“I told him what we needed and he sent a prototype within a few days,” Guggenberger said. “It was exactly what we were looking for.”
Once the committee approved the design, it was time to raise money to pay for it.
“The community really came together,” Guggenberg said. Donations totaling $56,000 came from Ralph Gracie American Legion Post 14, the North Country Disabled American Veterans, the Bemidji Rotary Club, Beltrami Electric Cooperative’s Operation Round-Up, the First National Bank Foundation, the Blackduck American Legion Auxiliary and the Beltrami County Board of Commissioners.
All installation work was donated by Dave and Ron Cuperus of Cuperus Construction, Bemidji Welding Supply, Lakes Concrete, Christiansen Construction and Finishing Touch Landscaping.
Guggenberger, who spent 1,491 days as a prisoner of war in South Vietnam and Cambodia after being captured on Jan. 14, 1969, said the potential development of the Rail Corridor could mean expansion of the Veterans Memorial.
“The board has ideas to expand,” he said. “Some people say, ‘What’s wrong with what you have?’ and I say, ‘What’s wrong with more?’ Like many Vietnamese came home, that’s why I’m doing this. I said to the mayor: ‘You will be proud of it.’ The city will have something to brag about.”
Guggenberger would also like to find a way to recognize nurses who served in wars.
“I want to honor nurses because they have never been recognized,” he said. “Especially combat nurses.”
Donations to the Bemidji Veterans Memorial can be made online at
bemidjiveteransmemorial.com/donate-1.
