Crowds gathered at the Iowa State Capitol in 1921 to pay tribute to Capt. Harrison Cummins McHenry, the first Iowa officer to be killed in action during World War I. (Photo: State Historical Society of Iowa)
By Dave Elbert
Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day” in 1868 to honor Civil War casualties.
But it wasn’t until World War I that Iowa soldiers’ names started to show up on major landmarks here in Des Moines. Two streets and two city parks are named for World War I soldiers, with three of those changes made just days after the men died.
Pvt. Merle D. Hay, a 21-year-old farm mechanic from Glidden was the first. He was killed in northern France on Nov. 3, 1917, during the war’s first battle that involved U.S. troops. Hay and two others died before dawn in hand-to-hand combat when 500 Germans overran their position.
Two days later, Hay’s death was front-page news in Iowa, prompting suggestions that his birthday, June 30, be made a state holiday. Instead, on Nov. 17, Des Moines Mayor John MacVicar declared that 58th Street, which leads north to Camp Dodge, would be renamed Merle Hay Road.
The next renaming occurred four months later, after two local enlistees died on March 5, 1918.
Capt. Harrison Cummins McHenry (left), 27, and Cpl. Donald H. MacRae, 22, members of the 168th Infantry, were among 19 Americans killed when Germans bombarded trenches near Badonviller in eastern France. McHenry was crushed when a trench shelter collapsed; MacRae was shot while climbing over a machine gun.
McHenry was well known. A football and track star at West High School and Drake University, he earned a law degree from Drake in 1914. His mother had served as president of P.E.O. International, and his uncle was the former Iowa Gov. Albert Cummins who was a U.S. senator when his nephew died overseas.
MacRae was a North High graduate who had worked at Chase & West, a furniture store that sold Victrola record players and long-playing discs (better known as LPs).
Six days after McHenry and MacRae were killed, the Polk County supervisors voted to attach the young men’s names to parts of the White Pole Road (now Highway 6). McHenry Road ran from the east edge of Polk County to the Des Moines city limits, and MacRae Road ran from the west city limits to the county’s western border.
The following Sunday, March 17, Mayor MacVicar announced at a memorial service that two city parks also would be renamed: Good Park, on the city’s north side became McHenry Park, and South Park along S.W. Ninth Street became MacRae Park.
Another notable local died May 27. Capt. Edward O. Fleur, 45, was a victim of a German gas attack that killed 30. Fleur was the commander of MacRae’s machine gun unit and had been a manager at the furniture store where MacRae worked.
Three weeks after Fleur’s death, friends suggested renaming a city park in his honor. That didn’t happen, but two years later, city officials renamed a road that ran south from the city. Fourteen years later, in 1933, Fleur Drive became the home of the city’s third airport park, which grew to become Des Moines International Airport.
Capt. Fleur is buried at Woodland Cemetery, across the lane from his wife, Minnie, who worked as a county recorder and led the effort to build the World War I monument on University Avenue atop the east bank of the Des Moines River. Since wives weren’t allowed to be buried with the soldiers, the Fleurs’ across-the-street arrangement was the closest they could get.
Show Comments (0)