Kiwanis Club of Marietta to Host Marietta’s 237th Birthday Celebration
Marietta, OH – The Kiwanis Club of Marietta is excited to invite the public to their second annual celebration of Marietta’s birthday. The event commemorates the city’s 237th anniversary and will take place on Monday, April 7, 2025, at 8:00 a.m. at the Start Westward Memorial in Muskingum Park. It will feature a flag-raising ceremony led by The Marine Corps League Attachment 1436 as well as remarks by Mayor Josh Schlicher and the Kiwanis Club president, Shoshanna M. Brooker. Coffee and donuts will follow.
“The Kiwanis Club of Marietta has a long history of supporting the Start Westward Memorial,” said Kiwanian and Board Member Joe Grimm. “It dates back to 1987 when they were the original supporters of restoring the memorial. At the time, it was covered in graffiti. The club members hired a conservator to remove the graffiti, installed the United States flag along with flags of the six states comprising the Northwest Territory, and then installed the first-ever illumination of the monument and flags. Our goal is to have the Memorial properly conserved by Marietta’s 250th anniversary in 2038.”
The Ohio State Historic Preservation Office is currently reviewing a nomination to list the Start Westward Memorial on the National Register of Historic Places. The monument and pylon sculptures commemorate the American Government’s expansion west and also have significant ties to national history.
The National Memorial to the “Start Westward of the United States” was created by the sculptor of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Gutzon Borglum. Borglum designed the memorial in 1937 through concept sketches, followed by a full-scale plaster of Paris rendering, and then a smaller-scale clay model that was used by stone carvers. The final Memorial was carved from native sandstone.
Efforts to conserve this sandstone memorial are led by The Start Westward Memorial Society with significant support from the Kiwanis Club of Marietta.
About The Start Westward Memorial Society LLC
The Start Westward Memorial Society was founded on July 1, 2019, with guidance from the Mount Rushmore Society and the National Park Service Historic Preservation Training Center. They provide private sector assistance to the Memorial’s owner, the State of Ohio. For more information, visit startwestward1787.com/.
About The Kiwanis Club of Marietta
The Kiwanis Club of Marietta was chartered in March 1922 and exists to improve the quality of life for children and families in our local community and worldwide.