Monday will mark a century since Mt. Pleasant first had a doughboy memorial statue keeping watch high over Main Street — although the figure passersby see today is not quite that old.
“We are on the fifth rendition of the statue,” said Rick Meason, president of the Mt. Pleasant Area Historical Society. “When the original one showed up before the dedication in 1924, its legs were broken and they had to order a new statue.”
The doughboy figure was erected in the wake of World War I, to honor the community’s soldiers from all wars. Located at the intersection of Main and Diamond streets, it has suffered its own share of wounds when traffic tangled with it.
“It was knocked over three different times,” Meason said — in 1927, 1968 and on New Year’s Eve 1981. “They salvaged the pillar it stands on a couple of times. But every time, the statue was destroyed, and every time they rebuilt it.”
Though the term “doughboy” generally is associated with World War I soldiers, Meason noted the nickname for U.S. troops originated when they were mobilized in 1916 to oppose Pancho Villa’s incursions along the Mexican border.
When they encountered sandstorms, Meason said, “The dust and sand stuck to the sweaty soldiers, giving them a doughy appearance.”
Meason is set to speak at a Veterans Day program marking the doughboy statue’s centennial.
Following Mt. Pleasant’s annual Veterans Day parade and ceremony, the program will be held at the town’s Veterans Park — within view of the monument.
Town leaders first considered erecting a monument to local soldiers in November 1918, when World War I came to an end. Meason learned from period news accounts, “They tried to get public input on what kind of monument they wanted, but there was not a lot of interest and they just kind of let the topic die.”
The project gained a new impetus after a monument featuring a doughboy figure was erected in 1923 in nearby Scottdale, Meason said.
The doughboy concept won out when the Mount Pleasant Memorial Association held a design competition for its monument. With that decision made, the statue progressed quickly from drawing to reality.
“In a matter of months, they went from having the meeting saying ‘we should do this’ to having the dedication,” Meason said. “There were over 300 people going door to door collecting donations. They hit all the little communities from Ruffs Dale to Jones Mills and in between.”
The cost totaled $6,500 for the 6-foot, 6-inch stone statue, the granite pillar standing nearly 9 feet tall and the 5-foot-square base.
Although the statue is meant to honor Mt. Pleasant soldiers from all eras, one of its features — 15 bronze stars around the base — specifically recognizes local members of Company E of the 110th Infantry Regiment who gave their lives during World War I.
One of those killed in action was 1st Lt. William Cameron Stevenson, whose father, Simon, accepted the doughboy monument on behalf of borough council during a dedication ceremony on Veterans Day 1924. According to Meason, the ceremony was part of a three-day celebration.
It was preceded by a parade with more than 3,000 participants marching along a route of nearly 2 miles.
The Diamond Square intersection was renovated to prepare for the statue’s installation, and some trolley tracks were shifted out of the way.
Speeding and drowsy driving were thought to be factors when the doughboy first was toppled and shattered in 1927. A new statue was ordered, and a relative of the driver offered to cover repair costs of more than $1,900, according to Meason’s research.
The incident prompted the borough to take out insurance on the monument, which came in handy when it was struck in 1968 and had to be replaced again. That time, the price tag was more than $18,000.
The cost of re-creating the statue rose to about $50,000 after the 1981 crash, according to a later TribLive report.
Past versions of the doughboy may no longer be intact, but the heads from the statues that were toppled in 1968 and 1981 have been preserved as part of a display in borough council chambers.
The older of the two heads was stolen from the borough, was discovered again in the community of Hunker and had a place of honor for many years in the Mt. Pleasant law office of then-borough solicitor Milton Munk.
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Some in Mt. Pleasant have argued that the statue should be moved. But, Meason said, borough officials have stuck to their guns, since the monument in its existing location has become “a recognizable symbol of the town.”
Over the years, as the monument was rebuilt, the base has gained in size, Meason noted.
He learned another way the statue was bolstered from Mt. Pleasant’s former mayor, the late Jerry Lucia.
“They put a steel rod through the middle of the column, and the base can spin,” Meason said. “There have been several times that a tractor-trailer truck has become high-centered on the base, and the monument has been turned on its axis by the force.
“But the borough has been able to bring in a backhoe and just spin the doughboy back around. It’s going to be hard to knock him over again.”