Warsaw's Monument Circle

Before 1877, there was no "monument circle" along North Main Street in Warsaw. But that year, the Wyoming County Soldier's Association, headed by William Prior Letchworth, achieved its five year quest for a monument to Wyoming County's Union soldiers who had served in the Civil War. An act of Congress provided four brass cannons and sixteen iron cannonballs for the proposed monument. And The New England Granite Works created the fluted granite, Corinthian-styled monument for display at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876. The original price of $15,000 was reduced to $7,000 for the Warsaw transaction, and in 1877 the monument with its bronze Union soldier standing at rest was erected. A casket of Civil War memorabilia was deposited in the cornerstone.

Warsaw now had a "circle" around which traffic on Main and Court Streets would henceforth negotiate carefully.


The "monument" of Monument Circle and the Methodist Episcopal Church, c. 1910. Image source:private collection.

The establishment of this circle stimulated appropriately dignified buildings around it. In 1882, the county courthouse was constructed, designed by A. J. Warner in Richardson Romanesque style. The County Clerk's office followed and, in 1901-2, the Methodist Episcopal Church in brick, above.


2009 view of the same scene.


Use the slider bar to move back and forth across this panoramic postcard view of much of monument circle c. 1910. Image source: private collection.

Use the slider bar to move back and forth across this modern view of the same scene.

The jail and sheriff's office followed close behind and, in 1904, the new Carnegie Library fronted the Circle with complementary architecture. (See pictorial here.) All of the governmental buildings underwent transformation or replacement in the intervening century. Most unusual was the radical remodeling of the County Clerk's building and the Courthouse in 1937 by Wallace P. Beardsley into the Georgian structure commanding the northeast corner of the Circle today. The jail was replaced by a new courthouse building (1998-99)and adjacent Public Safety Builiding (1996).

The northwest corner of Court and North Main has been occupied by the Augustus Frank house since its construction in 1849-50.A visitor of 1910 would recognize Monument Circle today.

 

The Monument Circle Historic District, comprising 21 structures total, was listed on the New York and Federal Register in 1992. For more information, see the Warsaw Historical Society's web here.

Additional research utilized the Historical Wyoming quarterly (October 1993).

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