I was working at a fair just outside of Girard and had driven through there three or four times that week, usually at night, and knew that I recognized the name from somewhere but didn't make the connection until I was headed for an oil change and driving by at 40 MPH when I saw this sign, stopped dead and backed up...
More Girard pictures tomorrow...
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No comment a ? I have a small black elephant with Rice's Circus on one side and the date April 5 1913 on the other side, do you know anything about this date? send answer to renfroe511@hotmail.com thanks
That monument, said to be the first Civil War memorial to soldiers in the country, was controversial in Girard. Some locals, including his town leader in-laws, considered him a vulgar show-off and objected to his placing a monument in the street in front of his house. They decided he was erecting a monument to himself. Regardless, the ceremony made national news. A week later Rice had his name carved in the base, and his opponents decided it proved that it had been about him all along. Rice decided that the town leaders would ignore his contribution if his name weren't literally carved in stone. He had some justification for that belief, as Girard had little use for him once he went bankrupt and a century would go by before the town embraced his memory. (They asked Rice's Long Branch, New Jersey relatives for the body, to be reburied in Girard, but Long Branch said No: "You didn't want him when he was alive; you can't have him now."
This is not the first Civil War monument in the country. The one in Berlin CT is from 1863 and there is one in Kentucky erected in 1862.
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