Monuments dedicated to Union soldiers in the south are rare outside battlefields or cemeteries. This one in Lynn Haven, Florida is not widely known. Lynn Haven was established in 1911 as the third of three Union Veterans Colonies in the South. It was named after W. H. Lynn who had been an associate of the National Tribune and the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) veterans’ organization. Lynn was a primary stockholder of the St. Andrews Bay Development Company, the corporation that owned and developed the land on which the city stands. It donated several lots between 8th and 9th Streets and Georgia Avenue to the Ladies Auxiliary of the G.A.R. A hall was soon erected. With the hall in place Union veterans and Mayor W.H. Krape began planning a memorial to all Union veterans. The hall was destroyed by fire in 1916 but work on the memorial continued. Members donated a small portion of their pensions monthly to the project and by 1920 enough money was raised for construction. The Mullins Company in Salem, Ohio was selected to build a statue of a Union soldier holding a musket. He was placed on a pedestal facing north.

Plans began in 1913 to erect a monument to honor those “fallen comrades” of the Union Army by the local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The effort was led by Dr, William Krape (also a Veteran and Lynn Haven Mayor- 1920). In less than a year and a half, the project was begun, completed and debt-free. Much of the cost was provided by contributions from the soldiers’ pension checks. Atop a pedestal 26-feet above the base stands this Union Solider forever looking toward his home in the North. Upon completion of the monument, the “first of the kind in this far Southland,” it was dedicated “to the memory of those that were left behind on the battlefield.” In 1956, the monument was redirected to American Veterans of all U.S. Wars.