A photo of the 52 Kiwanis members who participated in the Start Westward Memorial conservation project in 1988. (Photo provided by Kiwanis Club of Marietta)

The Kiwanis Club of Marietta is hosting its second annual celebration of Marietta’s birthday in April.

The event commemorates the city’s 237th anniversary and will take place on April 7 at 8 a.m. at the Start Westward Memorial in Muskingum Park.

The Marine Corps League Detachment 1436 will lead a flag-raising ceremony followed by a speech from Mayor Josh Schlicher and Kiwanis Club President, Shoshanna M. Brooker.

Expect coffee and donuts after the morning ceremony.

“The Kiwanis Club of Marietta has a long history of supporting the Start Westward Memorial,” said Kiwanian and Board Member Joe Grimm. “It dates back to 1987 when they were the original supporters of restoring the memorial.”

According to Grimm, the goal is to have the Memorial properly conserved by Marietta’s 250th anniversary which would be in 2038.

The Ohio State Historic Preservation Office is currently reviewing a nomination to list the Start Westward Memorial on the National Register of Historic Places.

The monument and pylon sculptures commemorate the American government’s expansion west and also have significant ties to national history.

The National Memorial to the “Start Westward of the United States” was created by the sculptor of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Gutzon Borglum. He designed the memorial in 1937 through concept sketches, followed by a full-scale plaster of Paris rendering, and then a smaller-scale clay model that was used by stone carvers. The final Memorial was carved from native sandstone.

Efforts to conserve this sandstone memorial are led by the Start Westward Memorial Society with support from the Kiwanis Club of Marietta.

The Start Westward Memorial Society was founded on July 1, 2019, with guidance from the Mount Rushmore Society and the National Park Service Historic Preservation Training Center. They provide private sector assistance to the Memorial’s owner, the State of Ohio. For more information, visit startwestward1787.com.