Neighbors gathered at the Pioneers Monument March 15 to learn more about it and its future. (Luis de Leon)
Despite the return of gloomy skies and frigid Minnesota temperatures on Saturday, March 15, several residents gathered at the long-standing Pioneers Monument in B.F. Nelson Park.
The conversation, hosted by Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board Commissioner Billy Menz, saw a relatively small turnout. Curious neighbors included nearby resident Meghan Walters who regularly takes her dog, Lucy, out for walks on the winding park’s trails into neighboring Boom Island Park.
“We walk past it every day and we always wondered, like, what the back story [was],” Walters shared with the group.
The gathering occurred days after a regularly scheduled St. Anthony West Neighborhood Organization (STAWNO) Board of Directors meeting on March 13. At that meeting, STAWNO Board Chair Chris Linde told the Northeaster that a motion was narrowly passed on a 3-2 vote to approve the recommendations from a Jan. 16 presentation hosted by local Dakota artist Angela Two Stars. However, due to the jurisdictional structure, it’s ultimately up to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, rather than STAWNO, to decide the future of the monument.
Two Stars, vice president of arts and culture at the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI), brought forth recommendations including the decommissioning of the Pioneers monument, relocating it from its current site, dismantling the structure and repurposing its materials in landscape design, implementing policies to reassess artworks that reflect present-day values, and restoring the park’s natural environment and landscape.
While next steps have not yet been determined, Colleen O’Dell, a senior planner and architect with the MPRB, said a possible next step could be to take the recommendation to the city’s Public Art Advisory Panel and the Arts Commission. Menz noted that funding will be a concern, but felt the recommendation was a step in the right direction.
“It is good to start fresh now,” Menz said to the group. “There is no reconciliation for what happened in the past. There’s only the building of trust.”
The monument was unveiled at Pioneer Square across from the main Post Office in 1936. It was then moved to Marshall and 5th Street NE in 1968, and was moved again in 2010 to the park. In late 2020, the monument was vandalized with slogans and red paint.
Despite the small turnout, it was not the first community-driven activity related to the consideration of the monument’s future.
Sally Grans Korsch, who serves on the board of directors for STAWNO, said the latest developments are the culmination of several grants used to analyze the monument and the surrounding area over the last five years. Community input was sought at various meetings.
As for Walters, she expressed concern to the group but ultimately found reassurance in the effort on Saturday. “I think in the last five years, anti-racism and embracing our violent past as a country has been in trend, and I feel a change in the general population away from seeing it as being ‘trendy and cool,’ to being knowledgeable and woke and want change,” she said.
Community engagement, however, has not been without opposition to removing the statue, which Menz acknowledged at the latest community conversation.