Featured Windows, February 1999

Ironwood Memorial Building, Ironwood, MI

Building: Ironwood Memorial Building

City: Ironwood

State: Michigan

This War Memorial Window is one of many stained glass windows in the Ironwood Memorial Building, erected in 1922 to commemorate Ironwood residents who served in the United States armed forces during one of three wars involving our nation. The window's central panel shown here depicts the World War I Battle of the Argonne, with airplanes flying overhead, shrapnel exploding, and heavy artillery firing in the streets below. Above are shields with insignia of the Allied nations. Its two side panels represent a Civil War scene of Fort Sumter and a Spanish-American War scene of Morro Castle in Havana. Other windows in the Memorial Building feature World War I scenes of Air Force fighter planes, Navy ships at sea, Army soldiers and artillery on the battlefields, and a Red Cross nurse tending the wounded. Additional windows hold the insignia of all United States armed forces, the American Red Cross and the American Legion.

Designed in the Classical style by Minneapolis architects Charles E. Bell and C. LeRoy Kinports and built by the Albinson Construction Company, the Ironwood Memorial Building contains municipal offices, an auditorium, gymnasium, swimming pool, banquet room, club rooms, and a marble lobby with painted murals portraying Upper Peninsula mining and logging industries and pioneer missionary Father Jacques Marquette. Bronze plaques list the names of more than 1700 Ironwood residents who served in our nation's military branches during World War I, the Civil War or the Spanish-American War. The windows were created by the Mosaic Art Shop of Minneapolis. The $750,000 cost of the building was met through a special bond issue, promoted by the local American Legion Post and the Ironwood Woman's Club and passed by Ironwood's citizens. The facility was rededicated in 1996 after being completely restored and is listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and Michigan's State Register of Historic Sites.

Ironwood Memorial Building of Ironwood was registered in the Michigan Stained Glass Census by Mrs. Caroline T. Larson of Ironwood.

(MSGC 1992.0039)

Text by Betty MacDowell, Michigan Stained Glass Census, February , 1999.