As dawn's faint light broke over Alexandria, Minn., one morning last month, the sound of taps from a lone bugler echoed amid granite monoliths engraved with more than 7,000 names of veterans.
Alexandria — a town of nearly 14,000 in northwestern Minnesota and the Douglas County seat — finally had its own Veterans Memorial Park to honor those who served.
Many smaller towns have memorial parks, albeit modest ones, for their veterans, said Jim Conn, an Air Force Vietnam-era vet.
"They tend to be on the outskirts of town," he said. "Once they're dedicated, people start to forget about them. Weeds start growing up between the cracks."
Conn and a group of local vets decided three years ago that Alexandria needed its own veterans memorial and wanted to do things differently. The memorial would be a town centerpiece that could be visited and not forgotten.
As luck would have it, the city had just the right piece of land — an underutilized city park at W. 8th Avenue and Broadway Street downtown. Even better, the city would still own the land and maintain the park, said Gabe Pipo, a Vietnam Navy vet who chaired the volunteer committee that oversaw the memorial's construction.
With a site chosen, the committee got to work, raising $1.2 million from businesses, community organizations and other donors that allowed construction to begin in August 2019.
"The entire community supported us," Pipo said. Less than a year later, the memorial was finished with plans to dedicate it on July 4, complete with a parade, band and an expected crowd of more than 1,000 people. But with the coronavirus pandemic raging, organizers instead postponed a big celebration for later, when it's safer, and orchestrated a low-key opening on June 26. A 5 a.m. ceremony kept the crowd small.
