James H. Brown’s monument

Today’s issue of the Battle Creek Enquirer has a very nice article by Ryan Holland: “Uninished Tribute to the Open Road.” It’s about the strange-looking monument that is peeking above the “Welcome to Battle Creek” sign where I-194 ends in Battle Creek. (I took the photos in this article on my way out of town on a day-ride in July 2005 – my last ride with an old 2 Mp Nikon Coolpix camera.)

I don’t have a photo of the most interesting face of the monument, but you can find a good one in Holland’s article, as well as a photo taken during its construction.

I had not known about the James H. Brown who developed a new phonics system for his students, lobbied for better roads, recorded oral histories of old-timers in the 1910s and 1920s, and left a collection of glass negative photographs that was almost thrown out after his death. He is the one who started this monument, but didn’t quite complete it before his death. (I seem to remember that it was originally located downtown. The article doesn’t tell us about the travels of the monument itself.)

I also had not realized that each stone in the monument is significant, beginning with one from Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace:

Brown was obsessed with the transcendent power of historical objects. When he was presented a stone commemorating Abraham Lincoln at the president’s birthplace in Kentucky, Brown proceeded to take it on a tour of Lincoln’s life, stopping at various places in Illinois where Lincoln lived. Brown even placed the stone in Lincoln’s tomb before bringing it to Battle Creek to include in the tower.

Unfortunately, we don’t know which stone made that grand tour before coming to rest in Battle Creek.

Brown’s meticulous key to the tower now in Monument Park has disappeared. We don’t which of the stones is the Lincoln stone, nor do we know where stones devoted to Sojourner Truth or Gen. Robert E. Lee are located. Only some identifications remain: objects like the cast of a Moon Journal front page, a gear from the Hodunk flour mill and a German World War I helmet.

I presume this object is some kind of of plowshare. Is this one of the few objects whose provenance is known? At least I now know who to ask.

If one of the gears is from the Hodunk mill, how about this wheel, which looks to me like a millwheel that still has some faint traces of furrows in it. Did it come from the Hodunk mill, too? (I see that I haven’t yet posted anything about that mill.)

Brown loved the way the automobile enabled him to get out and see rural America, and perhaps didn’t foresee how the automobile would help make much of rural America disappear.

The great irony is that the car culture that inspired the monument now has spawned a passive indifference to the stones that Brown held so dear. There is no marker recognizing Brown or indicating the history of the monument, and many people, including myself, are used to hurtling down I-194 and giving it a short glance on the way in and out of downtown.

But there is a better way to get out and explore the history of rural America. It’s called a bicycle. I will venture to say it’s a good way to continue Brown’s work.

And maybe there is a bicycle ride coming up — to the site of Brown’s boyhood home in Climax Township, if I can identify where it was.