HISTORICAL INFORMATION SECTION (OR, AS MANY CACHERS CALL IT, THE BLAH, BLAH, BLAH SECTION):
This is the largest of Kentucky's Civil War monuments and was erected by the Kentucky Women's Confederate Monument Association in 1895. Led by Susan P. Hepburn of Louisville, the organization raised $12,000 to construct this 70-foot-tall monument. Four tiered granite steps support the main pedestal, which is topped by a 95-inch-tall bronze figure of an infantryman holding a rifle down in front of him with both hands. Smaller pedestals on the east and west sides support life-sized bronze figures. The east figure is an artilleryman holding a ramrod; the west figure is a cavalryman drawing a sword.
The figures were created by Ferdinand von Miller, an internationally-known German sculptor, and multiple casts were sold through monument companies (Raleigh, North Carolina has one), a typical practice.
The monument nearly didn't survive and it is threatened even now. Public opposition prevented its removal as a traffic hazard in the 1920s and 1940s (how much traffic could they have had?), though the original 48-foot diameter circle was reduced in size, and the lighting removed in the 1950s.
More recently, many calls for its removal have come as the monument is "politically incorrect" for our times. Now the state and university are developing a one-acre park adjacent to the site that will showcase exhibits commemorating the civil rights movement along with the statue of the Confederate soldier. The area is named Freedom Park.