Lansing chose to honor her military veterans in the unique setting of a bluff-top park overlooking a sweeping turn in the Mississippi River and the town itself. According to the Iowa Legionnaire on July 3, 1922: “Some places show their appreciation of the valor of the boys by building memorial halls, arches or community club houses in their honor, but here in Lansing we have a natural and most significant memorial, built by Nature’s God and everlasting, in Mt. Hosmer and two adjacent hills, embodying a tract of about fifty acres, and looking down an altitude of nearly 500 feet upon the city nestling at its base.”

What became Veterans Memorial Park was called First Hill by Lansing’s settlers—the first of three hills stretching immediately north of town. At the foot of that bluff Lansing established a boat landing, where in June 1851 the lively Miss Harriet Hosmer disembarked from a steamboat. An art student who would become an internationally known sculptor, Hosmer had spent the previous months sightseeing along the great river which bi-sects the United States. And she must have had some pent up energy because she set about climbing to the top of First Hill. There is more than one legend about why she made the climb, perhaps racing others from the boat, but they all end up with the hill being forever after known as Mount Hosmer. 

During a July 1922 meeting reported on by the Legionnaire, Lansing’s citizens agreed to purchase an estimated 50 acres of Mount Hosmer as a memorial to the soldiers and sailors of the Great War. They would dedicate the hill specifically to three Lansing men killed in that war: William Beck, George Glynn and Robert Strong, all killed in battle during August and October 1918. Flagpoles were to be placed on the bluff’s three points in memory of Beck, Glynn and Strong. 

The land was soon purchased in the name of Lansing Post 50 of the American Legion and 634 white pines were planted on the hill’s crown, representing all of the Allamakee County servicemen who participated in the Great War. Legion members created a steep and winding access lane to the park, creating a scenic lookout halfway up. In August 1923, Post 50 donated the land to the city of Lansing as a veterans memorial park.

During the next several years the park endured both setbacks and enhancements. A fire destroyed many of the young pines, although some remain as a reminder of the original grove. In 1937, mason Henry Burke built limestone columns to mark the entrance of the park, and the new gateway was dedicated with program and picnic on Labor Day.

In 2001, Lansing Veterans Memorial Association added an all-veterans memorial to the park and rededicated the memorial on Veterans Day. Marble stones for each branch of the U.S. military sit behind an apron of bricks inscribed with the names of service members. A flagpole on the bluff edge facing the river was replaced with lighted seventy-foot pole. A new memorial was also incorporated into the remains of the original white pine grove, featuring three limestone boulders with plaques describing the park’s purpose and history. These additions were funded and constructed by the Lansing Veterans Memorial Association.

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