Feeling unhenged? Replicas and take-offs of Stonehenge abound

Where’s the nation’s first World War I memorial? If you guessed Washington you would be right - that is, the state, not the capital.

The Stonehenge Memorial near Goldendale, above, is a concrete replica of its English counterpart, was dedicated (though not finished) in 1918 and sits on a bluff above the Columbia River.

Which got me thinking about other look-alikes and take-offs that take their inspiration from the neolithic pile of stones on the Salisbury Plain. Click here to see some Stonehenge look-alikes we found. RoadsideAmerica.com has a whole story on “why America is filling up with replica Stonehenges.” And Treehugger.com has a nice story and photos of Fridgehenge near Santa Fe, N.M.

In the case of the war memorial, businessman Sam Hill mistakenly thought the original was a monument to human sacrifice, according to the Maryhill Museum of Art, which oversees the monument. This was Hill’s way of honoring the soldiers of Klickitat County who lost their lives in the Great War.

For Veterans Day, the museum invites those who have served in the armed forces to visit and attend a reception at 3 p.m.

Info: (509) 773-3733 of visit the museum’s website.

–Mary Forgione, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: Maryhill Museum of Art (top); John Ahr (bottom)]

Permalink | E-mail | Print | Add to My Trips

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 7:42 am by Mary Forgione and is filed under Europe, Great Britain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.