Robert "Pete" Wiscount Veteran's Memorial Park - 3
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This cache is placed in the Robert C. “Pete” Wiscount Veteran’s Memorial Park in Tremont. This beautiful Veteran’s Memorial Park is a place to honor all those from the Tremont area who served and will serve our country, recognizing their devotion to duty and the sacrifices they made to protect our freedoms.
The park is open from dawn to dusk and is built on the site of the former Tremont Hardware Store. Several years after the hardware store closed to business, this large building gave way to age and collapsed. Through Pete’s vision and leadership skills, Borough Council acquired this site. With a group of dedicated individuals, Pete being the catalyst, this site was transfer into the beautiful park you see today. Unfortunately, Pete’s untimely death prevented him from seeing the completion of this project. On August 12, 2006, this park was named and dedicated in his honor.
This cache is from the Population Explosion cache site. Junior #3 was chosen for here because the name Tremont is French for the Three Mountains that surround the town: Bear Mountain, Big Lick Mountain and the Sharp Mountain.
This cache was placed with the knowledge, acceptance and approval of Tremont Borough Council and may remain on site provide the park is not damaged by the search for this cache. Please search carefully and with consideration for this beautiful park. It is not a difficult hide.
I would like to thank:
Lane Mack, Borough Council President for helping to establish this cache,
Members of Borough Council who gave their blessings for this cache site and,
Mayor Charles Huntzinger for providing me with the following history of the Park.
Sexybettyboop7567 for allowing me the use of some of her photos of the park.
Cheryl A. Wiscount (Pete's Sister-in-Law) for providing me with the "BEFORE" group of pictures.
HISTORY OF THE
ROBERT “PETE” WISCOUNT
VETERANS MEMORIAL PARK
During the spring of 2003 the Tremont Borough purchased a lot for the purpose of constructing a Veterans Memorial Park. The lot is located where the old Tremont Hardware Co. once stood on East Main Street. During the winter of 1996 during a several day period of an ice and snowstorm the building collapsed and was subsequently demolished. Over the following years, the lot stood empty and became overgrown with brush and weeds. After the purchase, a small group of volunteers completed cleaning the area and dismantling the steel structure. Then began the long hard task of preparing the area to become a park to honor our area veterans.
Concrete work was done to support existing walls around the area that would be required to hold the enormous amount of fill that would be needed to bring the grade to street level. Several local area construction and soil products companies donated fill. Over 2300 cubic yards of fill was used and all except the top layer of soil was donated.
The CLEAN organization (Concerned Local Environmental Awareness Neighbors, Inc.) in Pine Grove learned of our project and some of it’s members came to help with the backfill by donating their labor and several friends of CLEAN who owned heavy earth moving equipment brought their big trucks, track hoes and dozers to help move the earth.
In order not to place a financial hardship on the Borough’s finances the volunteer workers formed a committee (Tremont Community Organization) to help raise money for this and other projects that will benefit our community without using tax dollars. In time, money was raised through pizza sales, candy sales, spaghetti dinners and other fundraisers to cover our expenses to get us where we are today. A 16x30 ft. gazebo was erected on the site on July 17, 2004 at a cost of $15,000.00 all paid for by private donations and volunteer fundraising. As we continued to prepare other areas of the park, additional concrete work was required to construct the final wall; landscaping, electrical and water installation was also done. A local architect donated his time to help us with the park layout including the monument location that will memorialize our veterans.
Over the next few years the following Park Development Highlights took place:
· January, 2004 100 ft. of fencing was ordered for the east side of the park
· March, 2004 a Gazebo was ordered and will be built on site and west side fence will be installed
· June, 2004 Grass seed was planted
· July. 2004 the Gazebo was erected
· August, 2004 the front fence and gate were erected
· August, 2004 the Commonwealth Telephone Co. donated and installed a power line pole
· September, 2004 electrical service was installed and a dusk to dawn light was installed at the gazebo
· November, 2004 Halabura Tree Farm donated the parks first tree
· November 2004 the first community Christmas tree lighting in the park took place
· June, 2005 Alcoa donated a 37 foot flag pole – Bob Allen donated the Flag and flags holders and flags recognizing all wars were donated by the Tremont American Legion
· July, 2005 Pavers and bricks were ordered for the walkway and around flag and memorial center
· August, 2005 the First concert in the park and Flag Pole Dedication took place
· November, 2005 Tremont Borough Council enacted Resolution Number 2005 – 08, Naming the Park, the Robert “Pete” Wiscount Veterans Memorial Park
· March, 2006 The Veterans Monument was ordered
· May, 2006 Several Memorial Park Benches were ordered
· July, 2006 concrete poured for Veterans Monument and Memorial Benches and the Monument was placed
· August 12, 2006 the park was dedicated:
The Robert “Pete” Wiscount Veterans Memorial Park
PICTURES PROVIDED BY:
sexybettyboop7567, Cheryl A. Wiscount & MJScheib
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