Monuments

Battlefield Memorial Park
Construction

Battlefield Memorial Park sprang from a derelict parcel of land at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Louisville Road.

When the job had just begun, because the former industrial site was strewn with concrete, rebar, barbed wire, and weeds. While working for the Coastal Heritage Society, SCP officer Eric Davenport supervised the transformation of this site into the stunning park it is today. The work included the building of the redoubt; storm drain installation; archaeological excavations and laying the stone markers. The final result is a 800-stone granite memorial and reconstruction of a Revolutionary War-era earthen fort. Together these features are used as a memorial and as a backdrop for historical interpretation.

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Vietnam Memorial

Eric Davenport and Gary Thorne led this effort for the Coastal Heritage Society to restore the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Emmet Park in Savannah, Georgia. The work included cleaning and repair of the marble stones, many of which were broken and needed to be replaced.

Eric and Gary identified a good match for replacement stones for the marble and also replicated a pointing mortar that provided an accurate match for the existing mortars. Vegetation was removed from many joints and those were repointed or recaulked. Several of the marble benches surrounding the memorial had been damaged from skateboarders. The stones for those were also matched and we built and installed several new benches.

Gary found a restoration cleaner for one of the stone types that had been difficult to clean in the past. With the use of this product and some scrubbing with a soft brush we were able to get that stone looking new again.

Gary and his crew cleaned the monument and got it looking great for an important Veteran's Day ceremony. The project was conservation-driven, from the new stones to the cleaning, with improved longevity of the monument always a goal.