“All Gave Some, Some Gave All”

Northern Box Elder County Veterans Memorial at Midland Square in downtown Tremonton is where the historic Midland Hotel once stood. In 1995, the Midland Hotel burned down due to an electrical fire and the Hotel and businesses inside were a total loss. Tremonton City purchased the land in 1998 and a beautification committee was created to turn the land into a beautiful park named Midland Square to act as a community gathering area just as the hotel once had been.

After the park had been built, committee members felt the desire to place a Veterans Memorial in the park so that all that passed by would be reminded of the freedoms we have today because of the men and women from Northern Box Elder County who served our country. Sometime in January of 2000, Colleen Johnson, President of the Tremonton Beautification Committee, contacted Mr. A.C. Christensen to ask if he would become a member of that committee and was appointed Chair of a memorial committee and supervised its construction.

Mr. Christensen was a veteran of World War II, and spent three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp. The memorial consists of a block-shaped monument displaying portraits of the four Borgstrom brothers from nearby Thatcher, Utah who died within six months of each other in 1944, during World War II. Jackie Allred Hunlow sculpted the portraits. Overlooking the monument is a larger-than-life bronze statue of a soldier gazing at the four brothers. The statue stands 7-feet 7-inches tall and was sculpted by local artist Val Lewis. Surrounding the memorial are stainless steel plaques where the names of over 3,000 local veterans are etched according to the wars in which they served. The memorial was dedicated on August 18, 2001. Funding to construct the memorial was provided by private donations and city RDA funds.

The memorial was updated in 2022 adding 75 additional names and making it possible for more Northern Box Elder County Veterans to be recognized.

At the time A. C. accepted, late in February, he wasn’t exactly sure where to begin. Finally he decided to find out just how many Veterans there were in Northern Box Elder County.  This would include Beaver Dam, Bear River City, Bothwell, Deweyville, Elwood, Fielding, Garland, Grouse Creek, Honeyville, Howell, Park Valley, Penrose, Portage, Promontory, Snowville, Thatcher, Tremonton, and Washaki. The 19 communities were divided into 43 areas where a veteran was selected to contact every home and collect the names of all that have and are still serving in the Military Forces of the USA. This would include WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, National Guard, Peacetime, and Reserves. By October 1st, names of 2,421 veterans were collected and published in our local paper, The Leader. The article asked for everyone to correct or add to the initial list. By the spring of 2001, close to 3,000 names had been identified for Veterans who would appear on the monument.

During this time, A.C. and Doris Christensen traveled to many towns in Utah, looking at statues and monuments to come up with some ideas of what would be appropriate for our area. They gathered pictures, information and visited with many of the people in other communities for material to assist with the final design. A wall for all of the Veterans names didn’t seem to fit in with the space available, so Chairman A. C. Christensen set about to come up with a different idea. When he presented this idea to the members of the Veterans Committee and the Beautification Committee, it met with their approval. Chairman Christensen chose the theme of “All Gave Some, Some Gave All”. They contracted four different sculptors for bids, Val Dee Lewis and Jackie Allred who are both from our area, were chosen.

A ground breaking ceremony was held on March 31st, 2001. A beautiful ceremony to commence the building of this commemorative site. Seventy-eight veterans who lost their lives were given tributes by a relative or friend who then posted the colors in their name. Boyd Marble, who had been inspired with the ground breaking idea of a shovel positioned in the ground and a bracket designed to for on the handle to post a flag in, placed 100  shovels in a half circle in the grass at Midland Square, inviting 22 more tributes from the 500 attending. It was a breathtaking sight on Midland Square that beautiful morning.

We hope that this memorial will be a reminder to all who visit this site of patriotism, love of country, freedom and to realize that Freedom Isn’t Free. Great causes are not won in a single generation. The heritage of freedom is as precious as life itself. It is our desire that with this visual, tangible monument, the passing students and populace can be taught and reminded of patriotism, love of country and freedom.