A lakeside memorial for veterans on Lake Champlain is getting a big boost in state funding. North Country Assemblyman Billy Jones has secured another $300,000 to go towards the second phase of Battlefield Memorial Gateway in the Town of Plattsburgh.
In all, Assemblyman Jones has helped land more than a half-million dollars in state funding. The project’s Purple Heart Trail was finished in phase one a year ago, and that trail was dedicated last summer. Now, phase two will focus on a Remembrance Plaza dedicated to veterans. Plattsburgh Town Supervisor Michael Cashman says that the memorial will cost around $6-million-dollars, but that tariffs could raise the cost of materials and stretch out the timeline. Bids open next week, the hope is to have work underway by late summer or early fall and wrapped up by next year to tie into America’s 250th birthday commemorations.
Then, the third phase of the project will look to renovate jetties on the lake to take boatloads of tourists to out to historic Crab Island to see the monument dedicated to the sailors killed in the Battle of Plattsburgh in 1814 whose graves are on the island. Proceeds from the town’s first ever Michigan Festival, coming up in August, will also help cover the costs of the Battlefield Memorial Gateway.
Watch the video and learn more at battlefieldmemorialgateway.org