AURORA | An Aurora memorial that commemorates each Colorado resident who died or went missing in every conflict since the Spanish-American War has only a few benches for people to sit and reflect on its transparent glass panels etched with nearly 6,000 names.
But that should change by this summer, says Tracy Young, manager of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Open Space Department.
That’s when the Colorado Freedom Memorial, which is built on four acres at Springhill Park near East Sixth Avenue and North Telluride Street, will have an outdoor pavilion that seats 50 people. The pavilion is being constructed along with new permanent restrooms on the south end of the memorial site that looks onto Buckley Air Force Base.
That’s in addition to 165 trees which will be planted along walkways that now sit in the middle of open fields where it’s common to see prairie dogs popping out of holes in the dirt mounds nearby.
Young says the new amenities are part of the second phase of Springhill Park’s development and should be completed by May of this year.
“Part of the park’s initial master plan was to have a large gathering area as far from the memorial as possible to help define those two spaces and respect people coming to memorial,” she says.
The improvements will cost $520,000, with $250,000 from an Arapahoe County open space grant and the rest from the county’s open space “shareback” funds, revenue the county shares with Aurora through an open space sales tax.
Master Sgt. Peggee Larkin, of the 460th Space Communications Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base, organizes volunteers to clean the memorial’s staggered array of glass panels that span 95 feet and measure 12 feet high, as well as trim the surrounding weeds.
She says so far the lack of amenities have not deterred her and other members of Buckley Air Force Base from volunteering at the site.
“Personally one of the reasons I do it is it’s honoring those that have come before us, that have paid the ultimate sacrifice,” she says.
But she says they will be a welcome addition and will solidify the memorial’s importance for Aurora’s military.
The improvements are also welcome news for Rick Crandall, the Aurora resident and Air Force veteran who spearheaded the project more than a decade ago.
“We had porta-potties out there for a while, but it kind of ruins the experience,” he says.
He estimates that between 500 and 1,000 visitors come to the site every month, and that it has become increasingly popular for everything from intimate family gatherings to national-scale military events.
The memorial is the first of its kind in the country and has received widespread national attention as a result.
Memorial Day is naturally a signature event at the park, where last year Aurora’s Dry Dock Brewing unveiled the Colorado Freedom Memorial Blonde Ale to raise money for maintaining the wall sculpture.
“The Colorado Freedom Memorial has definitely become a major attraction for Aurora and a vital piece of Visit Aurora’s marketing message since its dedication in 2013,” says Gary Wheat, president of Visit Aurora.
He says in 2014, there were over 10 events and 20 groups that visited the memorial.
He expects those numbers to increase this year with Visit Aurora pitching the memorial site to national bus tour operators.
“The Memorial is highlighted in all of our marketing material including Visitor’s Guide, website and profile sheets for tour planners to Colorado,” he says.
Crandall says visitors to the memorial this year can also look forward to water running through the trough below the glass panels that is meant to signify oceans that separated Colorado from the many foreign battlefields.
That element of the sculpture was not working last year due to record flooding in 2013 that cracked the tiles.
“Structurally, the memorial is in great shape, right now” he says.
He says with those repairs done, the next task for the memorial is to raise $10,000 for a new glass panel.
Since the memorial opened nearly two years ago, more than 200 new names have been discovered. Those names are currently listed on an orange stone marker at the end of the memorial wall.
“It’s really established itself,” Crandall says as he reflects on a memorial site that took him more than a decade to fund.