Work begins at Veterans’ Memorial site
HARTINGTON — Dirt work began Wednesday at the site for the new Hartington Veterans’ Memorial.
Gayle and Ken Hochstein were busy the entire day helping to remove the dirt and sand from the site of the new Hartington Veterans memorial as part of the project’s Phase One.
Gayle ran his payloader and his brother, Ken, ran the dump truck bringing the dirt to a lot owned by the city located at the northeast part of Hartington near the water treatment plant.
Kleinschmit Trucking also provided two men and two dump trucks as well for the afternoon to help move the dirt to the dumping location, which made for fast removal of close to 100 truckloads of dirt and sand.
The dirt is being removed so more suitable fill can be placed.
Project Coordinator Dan Kathol said work will begin soon to remove the basement floor that was left when the old furniture store was torn down years ago.
“Once the floor is removed and the ground is leveled, footings will be dug for the wall that will be erected around the entire perimeter,” Kathol said.
The west end of the wall will be level with Broadway Avenue and the east end will be nearly 10-feet high as the wall follows the slope of State Street to the north.
After the wall is erected sometime in August, new dirt will be brought in and compacted to fill the entire memorial area so that the entire memorial is level with Broadway Avenue.
The ground will then sit idle until the spring of 2021 when Phase Two will begin, Kathol said. The target day for the memorial completion is the fall of 2021 if all goes well with the fund raising and no construction delays occur, he said.
“The critical piece in the entire project is to locate sponsors for the 1500 or so veterans that are on the target list,” Kathol said.
Kathol said he and his committee will do everythng they can to get all the names of local residents on the memorial plaques.
“We want to exhaust all efforts to leave no veteran behind so that their name can appear on one of the monuments where the veterans’ names will be engraved,” he said. “Families are being asked to sponsor family members who are veterans or someone currently serving.”
A donation of $150 is needed per veteran, he said.
“Adopting a veteran at the $150 sponsorship donation will be an important element as well, to ensure that those veterans who have no one to sponsor them will have their name included and placed on the veteran monument,” he said.
Donation forms can be found at www.hartington.net and on the @Hartingtonveteransmemorial Facebook page.