The Soldiers and Sailors memorial was the first large memorial arch in America. It was dedicated in 1886 to the Hartford citizens who fought and died in the Civil war.

The arch leads into Hartford’s Bushnell park, however the entrance was quite different when first built. The Park river ran through the center of Hartford and a beautiful brownstone bridge lead up to the arch. The bridge was in the same design as the memorial.

The Park river was buried in 1940 to help with the spring floods and now runs through a large conduit ending in the Connecticut river.

The memorial, and the old bridge,  were built using brownstone brought up the Connecticut river from the quarries just down river in the town of Portland.

A side note, the ashes of the designer George Keller and his wife are in one of the towers.