Wayside Memorial Park / Wayside Memorial Park

In 1945-46 the Litchfield Garden Club created this park on land donated by the Litchfield Dairy Association. The club’s Memorial Committee, composed of Jessie Bowersox, Martha Beauchampet and Pauline Kropschot, used landscaping and green space to beautify the space, which had been used as a trash dump. The focal point was a stone memorial honoring ten local men who died in World War II. The Committee designated the adjacent one-mile section of M-99 as “Memorial Mile.” On September 8, 1946, the Litchfield Garden Club dedicated this park and its World War II memorial. Norman Issott designed the memorial, which Yunker Memorials, Inc. produced using crab orchard stone. The approximately seven hundred people attending the ceremony included family members of the men honored on the memorial. That same year, the National Council of the Federated Garden Clubs of North America gave the Litchfield Garden Club an Outstanding Achievement Award for the project.