Memorials
Honoring those who served
UW-Platteville has a rich history of supporting student and alumni veterans stretching back to World War I. Eight permanent memorials, both on-campus and off-campus, serve as monuments to honor their service and serve as a reminder of their sacrifice for all current and future UW-Platteville students and anyone who visits campus.
Recognizing those who served and sacrificed for our nation in times of war keeps us mindful of the freedoms we enjoy. To ensure that their sacrifices are not forgotten, UW-Platteville will continue to honor those who stood proudly for their country to restore freedom around the globe.
If you are visiting campus, use this Google Map to navigate to each memorial.
On campus memorials
World War I Memorial at Rountree Hall
On November 11, 1922, during the Armistice Day (today’s Veterans Day) ceremonies at City Hall in Platteville, Mrs. Katherine Stiles Laughton presented to the Wisconsin Mining School a beautiful bronze tablet, dedicated “to the loving memory of Frank Vivian Laughton, James Leslie Paull, and William E. Weber, Jr., graduates of the Wisconsin Mining School, who served with honor during World War 1914-1918 and gave their lives that liberty might not perish.”
The tablet was mounted in concrete at the foot of the flagpole on the Mining School campus. In 1926, a new 82-foot flagpole was erected, and the tablet was moved to a large concrete star on the northeast corner of the property known today as Rountree Hall. In 1932, a sundial was added to the star.
World War II Memorial in Memorial Park
The WWII Memorial is located in Memorial Park on the southwest end of campus. The original plaque, honoring the WWII fallen from the Platteville State Teachers College, was commissioned by the class of 1946, but never mounted. It wasn’t until 1988 that this plaque resurfaced and was returned to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. In 1989, this plaque was mounted to a stone in Memorial Park. Shortly after the 1989 dedication, a plaque was commissioned to honor the WWII fallen from the Wisconsin Mining School. The second plaque was added to the memorial on September 19, 1992, at a rededication ceremony.
ROTC Memorial and Major Christopher Splinter Memorial
Memorials for the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps program and one honoring the life of Major Christopher Splinter, is located on the west end of the Pine Street sidewalk, between Warner Hall and Royce Hall.
UW-Platteville has a long history supporting and training America’s Armed Forces. This included a history of training the Student Army Training Corps as far back as 1918 at the Wisconsin Mining School, and more recently the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, which was decommissioned in 1991.
Major Christopher Splinter
As a student at UW-Platteville, Christopher Splinter majored in Business Administration and joined the Army ROTC in 1986. In 1989, Splinter was commissioned in the Army Corps of Engineers, graduating from UW-Platteville in 1990. Splinter was one of the last graduates from the ROTC program at UW-Platteville. On December 24, 2003, while serving as an Army officer near Samarra, Iraq, Major Splinter made the ultimate sacrifice when the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an improvised explosive device.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The Vietnam Memorial is located near the flag poles outside of Ullsvik Hall. A dedication ceremony took place on Veterans Day, November 11, 2022.
In early 2020, Kolar connected with Dr. David Krugler, UW-Platteville professor of history, who happened to be teaching his Vietnam War history course that spring. Krugler then built a research assignment into his course. His students were able to participate in a conference call with Kolar to learn more about his goals and current research. The students visited the university archives and scanned indexes from past Pioneer yearbooks, which they then converted from PDFs into searchable text files. The files were used to match names from the yearbooks to those on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, which is available online. Dr. Arghya Das, a UW-Platteville assistant professor of computer science, coded a program to match the names to those on the wall. To date, twelve soldiers have been identified.
Mac Kolar, retired U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel
Telling the stories of soldiers killed in war started as a small, personal project for Mac Kolar, a 1969 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. About five years ago, the retired U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel began researching and writing about family members and residents of his hometown of Fennimore, Wisconsin. The efforts led him to connect with fellow alumnus Dr. Jim Lawton, a 1967 graduate of UW-Platteville and a former fraternity brother and teammate of Vasilios Demetris—one of the fallen soldiers Kolar was honoring. As Kolar and Lawton came to realize that no Vietnam War veteran memorial existed on campus—nor did a comprehensive list of students or alumni killed in action – the pair set out to change this. Through a collaborative endeavor that has spanned more than a year and included the help of faculty, staff and students across campus, they have now quadrupled the number of identified students and alumni, bringing them closer to their goal of memorializing the veterans on campus.
Other Campus Veterans Memorials
Other individual memorial markers can be found on the south side of the Center for the Arts, where trees are dedicated to WWI service members, who lost their lives in the war: Corporal Homer Grossman, Private Loren Peacock, and Sergeant Homer Parkinson. Originally dedicated in 1919 with three elm trees, which succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease in the 1960’s. Three new maple trees were planted in 2013 and the markers were found, replaced, and rededicated on June 8, 2013, by the Daughters of the American Revolution Fort Crawford Chapter.
UW-Platteville’s Link to The Highground
“Fragments” Statue at the Highground The Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Park, known as The Highground, is located near Neillsville, Wisconsin. It features a sculpture known as “Fragments”. Rober Kanyusik, an art professor at UW-Platteville, designed the statue. Under the direction of fellow professor Bud Wall, students cast, bronzed, and built the structure in the UW-Platteville Art Department in 1987. The four mutually interlocked figures reflect the cost of war and is dedicated to the sacrifice made by 1,244 Wisconsin servicemembers who are either missing or lost their lives in Vietnam. The memorial “Fragments” was dedicated in 1988.