Fort Moore Pioneer Memorial re-dedication ceremony

In 2016, during a restoration project by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Department of Public Works, a time capsule dating to 1957 was found in an obscure memorial that doubles as a hillside retaining wall in “an odd place” in a hard-to-reach location between Downtown and Chinatown.

The monument commemorates the Mormon Battalion and the New York Volunteer American military forces as they first raised the American flag over the recently-conquered California territory on July 4, 1847. Designed by Japanese-American architects Kazumi Adachi and Dike Nagano, the structure features a terracotta bas relief installation designed by Henry Kreis, a renowned German sculptor (the largest military monument of this style in the U.S.), showing a scene of soldiers raising a flag as a commander watches on his horse. The time capsule, which was found at the base of the flagpole, contained laminated and well-preserved papers and photographs, mostly related to the building and dedication of the memorial.

Now, as the area is changing, the once ‘odd’ out of the way location suddenly finds itself across the street from a new mixed use development called La Plaza Village, designed by the firm Johnson Fain, plus there will be a paseo that will connect the Memorial to Olvera Street. In short, the location is no longer out of the way and the memorial will soon be readily viewed by the public. So 61 years after its original dedication on July 3, 1958, the renovated memorial will be re-dedicated, complete with a refreshed water feature and a newly sealed 2019 time capsule.