The site was transformed from a children’s play area into a sitting area for adults, in keeping with the dignity of the park’s doughboy monument. The Returning Soldier, and later dubbed The Woodside Doughboy, the poignant monument by Burt Johnson was erected by the Woodside Community Council in remembrance of the local men and women who served in World War I. Although the park was named in 1971, the bronze and granite monument has stood on the site since 1923. Before the statue was erected, local soldiers gathered here at the “mustering ground” before departing to fight in World War I.