Repurposed Pillars

Four Freedoms Monumentโ€™s limestone columns had a prior life

Guarding the Ohio riverfront Downtown, the Four Freedoms Monument is one of Evansvilleโ€™s most familiar landmarks. Passersby may be curious about its history, which dates to decades before its installment.

โ€œBack in the 1970s, the national bicentennial was a big to-do,โ€ says Vanderburgh County Historian Stan Schmitt. โ€œHere in Evansville, the Downtown Civitan Club was looking for a community project. Until then, the stone columns had sat in storage for 10 years.โ€

Made from Indiana limestone, the 26-foot columns built in 1907 once embellished the facade of the C&EI Railway Depot near Downtown, a symbol of Indianaโ€™s identity as the crossroads of America. The building hosted the USO during World War II, later became a community center, and was razed in the late 1960s.

โ€œLooking fairly impressive, the columns were chosen to stand in for President Franklin Rooseveltโ€™s famous โ€˜Four Freedomsโ€™ speech before WWII,โ€ Schmitt says.

FDR evocated the importance of these universal freedoms โ€”freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear โ€” in his Jan. 6, 1941, State of the Union address.

7,500 people contributed a total of $137,000 to create the monument, a round plaza with 13 steps for the original colonies; the four columns; and a ring of 50 pedestals, one for each state. The monument was dedicated in 1976.

The monument still serves as a gathering spot where Evansville residents practice the civil liberty of a peaceful protest.

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Maggie Valenti
Maggie Valenti
Maggie Valenti joined Tucker Publishing Group in September 2022 as a staff writer. She graduated from Gettysburg College in 2020 with a bachelors degree in English. A Connecticut native, Maggie has ridden horses for 15 years and has hunt seat competition experience on the East Coast.

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