O’FALLON, Mo. — Hundreds lined up Friday morning here to lay flowers at the base of a warped and twisted piece of steel sitting under an American flag.
The metal is part of a memorial near O’Fallon City Hall made from steel salvaged from ground zero after two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, killing about 2,750 people 20 years ago. It’s one of five such municipal monuments to 9/11 in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area.
“People always said ‘never forget’ after 9/11,’†O’Fallon resident Anna Benda said at the city’s anniversary ceremony Friday. “We’re here so that we do remember, so something like this never happens again.â€
In the crowd, hundreds of local schoolchildren who were not yet born at the time of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, listened to a reading of a timeline of the attacks.
â€It took only a few minutes for our country to realize what was happening was not a tragic accident but a horrific terrorist attack on our great country,†keynote speaker O’Fallon police Capt. Frank Mininni said. “America turned this moment of horror into one of great hope, courage and strength.â€
Large artifacts from the 9/11 attacks, such as the steel featured in two memorials in O’Fallon, have become part of the landscape at five local memorials. The pieces arrived here through the efforts of area residents who wanted to honor those who lost their lives.
O’Fallon’s memorials
Where: At O’Fallon City Hall and in the median on Winghaven Boulevard, just north of Highway 40 (Interstate 64).
Almost a year after the 9/11 attacks, a group of O’Fallon city leaders traveled to New York City to see if they could secure a piece of history for a memorial.
It was years before the New York and New Jersey Port Authority to distribute thousands of artifacts from 9/11 for memorials in all 50 states.
The delegation consisted of John Griesenauer, an assistant city administrator at the time, along with former Mayor Paul Renaud and local artist Mark Carroll, who planned to design the memorial.
“I think the mayor had this idea that O’Fallon needed something to always remember what happened that day,†said Griesenauer, who retired last month after 38 years with O’Fallon city government.
The group first visited Staten Island’s sprawling Fresh Kills landfill, where 1.8 million tons of debris from ground zero was dumped after the 9/11 attacks. They selected a few pieces of steel and remnants from a street light.
“It was sort of chilling being there,†Griesenauer recalled. “We spoke with some FBI agents and one told me the story of a widow finding a birthday gift her husband bought for her before he died on 9/11 in the back seat of his car there.â€
The O’Fallon group then visited a New Jersey scrap yard where larger pieces of steel were slated to be recycled.
A salvage yard employee said he’d been saving one particularly striking piece and agreed to donate it to O’Fallon.
â€It was kind of a raw feeling looking at it,†Griesenauer recalled. “It gave you goosebumps to see steel like a piece of ribbon candy. Looking at it you really understood what it being so bent and warped meant.â€
A local trucking company donated its services to haul the steel to O’Fallon. The driver told city leaders that people who figured out what his flatbed carried honked at him in support as he drove, Griesenauer said.
When the wreckage arrived, city staff found what appeared to be an office cardigan twisted up inside and smelling like diesel. The city eventually sent the sweater back to New York officials to be catalogued.
â€We don’t know anything about the sweater, only that it probably belonged to someone who was in the World Trade Center, but it was like a holy relic to us,†Griesenauer said.
The first memorial in O’Fallon, featuring 13 tons of the twisted steel, was unveiled in 2003 on the two-year anniversary of the attacks. It sits in the median on Winghaven Boulevard, just north of Highway 40 in O’Fallon.
In addition to the steel, it features a section of a streetlight damaged in the attacks and a plaque honoring those killed.
A second O’Fallon memorial got off to a rough start when a 22-ton piece of steel from the World Trade Center was removed from city property and recovered months later, the Post-Dispatch reported at the time. There was a police investigation into what happened, but no one was charged.
Soon after, the city created a memorial from the impressive piece of twisted metal. That memorial was dedicated in 2005 outside City Hall. A smaller piece of steel is displayed on a pedestal inside City Hall.
Arnold’s garden
Where: On the north lawn of the Arnold Recreation Center, 1695 Missouri State Road.
Arnold police Chief Robert Shockey credits former Parks and Recreation Director Susie Boone with spearheading an effort to create a 9/11 memorial garden outside the city’s recreation center.
Boone ensured that Arnold was one of about 2,000 applicants to the New York and New Jersey Port Authority requesting a piece of steel when it launched a program to distribute 9/11 debris in 2010.
“She got the council to approve it, she did a ton of paperwork that was involved,†Shockey said. “It was a lot of work.â€
After months of documentation and assurances about how the artifact would be used, the city’s 4-foot piece of history arrived. Shockey said local police and firefighters escorted it with an honor guard from the airport.
The memorial was unveiled as part of a garden installation featuring two stone towers representing the World Trade Center on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Boone retired from the city in 2017 and moved to Alabama. She had planned to attend the city’s annual 9/11 remembrance ceremony Saturday, Shockey said, but she unexpectedly in July at age 68.
“Arnold is a very proud community,†Shockey said. “We’re proud of our police, proud of our first responders, so there’s always good numbers coming out to pay their respects on the anniversary. It’s something great to have here, and I hope Susie Boone gets credit for everything she did.â€
Belleville fire house
Where: Outside the Belleville Fire Department’s Administration Office at Illinois Highways 159 and 15.
Belleville’s 9/11 project was sparked by a resident reading the newspaper and became a community effort.
Sharon Strausbaugh, president of the Sept. 11 Memorial Walkway of Southern Illinois Committee, said a woman who lived nearby read an article in The New York Times about the Port Authority offering cities across the country World Trade Center debris for memorials.
The resident met with Mayor Mark Eckert who quickly supported the idea of the city applying for an artifact.
City leaders decided that Fire Department Engine House No. 4 would be a fitting location because it can be seen from Illinois Highways 159 and 15.
Belleville’s application was approved in October 2010, and a local trucking company volunteered to haul the 7,107-pound, 35-foot-long steel column from the New York area to Belleville.
Strausbaugh was an early member of the committee to raise money to build the memorial. The group held 5K runs, collections at parades and events, school fundraisers and golf tournaments, she said. Including labor and materials, the memorial is valued at more than $450,000, Strausbaugh said.
The memorial was built entirely through donations and opened in stages, beginning with placing the beam on two concrete towers representing the World Trade Center. The twisted steel is positioned to face New York City.
Over several years, the committee added a walkway of plaques describing a timeline of the events of 9/11, a plaza in the shape of the Pentagon and benches for visitors.
Strausbaugh secured a Ҡseedling, cultivated from what is thought to be the last living tree found at ground zero after 9/11. The seedling is planted near the steel beam and described with a plaque.
Strausbaugh sometimes spots notes or roses at the memorial and recognizes people who attend the city’s annual remembrance event.
The city canceled its in-person ceremony this year and in 2020 because of concerns about COVID-19, but Saturday’s event will be .
Strausbaugh said her group is working to fund additional signs so that drivers on nearby highways can recognize the steel beam as a piece of history.
Artifact near Edwardsville
Where: At Holiday Shores Fire Department, 93 Holiday Dam Road, Edwardsville.
An all-volunteer fire department in Holiday Shores, an unincorporated community near Edwardsville, created its own memorial to honor first responders killed while trying to help others on 9/11.
A 12-foot steel remnant from the World Trade Center is dedicated to the 343 New York firefighters killed on Sept. 11 and features depictions of a fire hydrant and firefighter’s axe. The memorial was unveiled on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
Holiday Shores Volunteer Fire Department Capt. Darl Opel told the Post-Dispatch in 2011 that the application process was more time-consuming than difficult.
Opel said there were many exchanges to assure the Port Authority that the fire department met eligibility guidelines, would display the steel appropriately and would not try to profit from its display.
Opel said he was surprised by one step in the process: Each transfer of the remnants required a judge’s approval, because the building remains were considered evidence of a crime.
Photos: ºüÀêÊÓƵ area remembers 9/11 attacks
Photos: ºüÀêÊÓƵ area 9/11 memorials feature a remnant from the World Trade Center
Memories of 9/11 recalled 20 years later in O'Fallon
‘Over time, it becomes more and more like history instead of current events.’
O'Fallon firefighters Cody Willis, left, and Heather Gump join O'Fallon police Lt. Jeff Cook for the honor guard recessional to conclude the 9/11 memorial program near city hall, marking 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, on Friday, Sept. 10, 2021. The memorial, made from salvaged World Trade Center steel in 2005, was designed by artist Mark Carroll. Photo by Robert Cohen, rcohen@post-dispatch.com.
O'Fallon, Mo. has three separate memorials for the 9/11 attacks: (top) The 'Spirit of Freedom' 9/11 Memorial in the median at Winghaven Boulevard and Highway 40/61; (bottom left) a memorial to first responders who were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, outside the city's Municipal Centre; and (bottom right) a section of the World Trade Center's steel core inside the City Hall lobby. Photos by Hillary Levin, hlevin@post-dispatch.com.
The city of Arnold, Mo., dedicated its memorial to 9/11 on September 11, 2011. The Memorial Garden, located on the grounds of the Arnold Recreation Center, is seen Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. This memorial includes a steel beam recovered from Ground Zero that serves as the focal point. The memorial also includes many Missouri plantings, and a replica of the Twin Towers. Photo by Hillary Levin, hlevin@post-dispatch.com
A flag blows in the wind at a 9/11 memorial outside a fire department in Belleville on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021. The memorial was constructed using a piece of metal from the World Trade Centers. Photo by Colter Peterson, cpeterson@post-dispatch.com
A 12-foot long twisted steel beam remnant from the World Trade Center is located in a plaza and garden created by the all-volunteer Holiday Shores fire department, in Madison County, photographed Friday, Aug. 27, 2021. The memorial, dedicated in a ceremony on Sept. 11, 2011, is to remember firefighters who lost their lives responding to the attack in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. Photo by Hillary Levin, hlevin@post-dispatch.com
A group of O'Fallon, Mo. city leaders visited the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island and another landfill in New Jersey in 2002 to select a piece of World Trade Center debris to be featured in the city's 9/11 memorial.