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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Trees damaged at Ely Area Veterans Memorial

Keith Vandervort
Posted 4/20/17

ELY – The Ely Police Department is asking for help in finding the people responsible for vandalizing five sapling trees at the Ely Area Veterans Memorial. Police say the trees were cut down and …

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Trees damaged at Ely Area Veterans Memorial

Posted

ELY – The Ely Police Department is asking for help in finding the people responsible for vandalizing five sapling trees at the Ely Area Veterans Memorial. Police say the trees were cut down and broken late Sunday night or early Monday morning.

The flowering crabapple trees, donated by the Ely Friends of the Trees group and planted by Ely Flower and Seed last fall, were just beginning to bloom.

A Facebook post from Ely Flower and Seed said, “This memorial is intended to honor all men and women that have served you and our country! I am sure that most everybody has or had a family member that has served in some form. PLEASE IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING, HELP HONOR THESE PEOPLE AND REPORT IT! My Grandpa, my brother, your grandparents, uncles, mothers, daughters, sons, etc. deserve better than this.”

According to the business, Bailey’s Nursery in St. Paul is replacing the five vandalized trees with 15 new ones “with pink, white, and red flowers way bigger than what was planted.”

Ely City Council member Albert Forsman responded to the community’s reaction to the vandalism. “It is great to see the way people step up to make things right when wrongs are committed against our community. I sincerely thank Ryan McEnaney and Bailey’s Nursery for the wonderful donation to the Ely Veterans Memorial. So many have worked so hard and contributed in so many ways to make the Ely Veterans Memorial look so good. It would be such a shame to see this senseless vandalism be a setback in the amazing progress we have seen at this monument.”

According to Dick Zahn, founder of the Ely Area Veterans Memorial, the money pledged to replace the destroyed trees will be put toward completing the veterans memorial. Zahn has been working on getting the memorial built since he retired in 1972. The memorial honors Ely’s veterans of all U.S. conflicts dating back to World War I.

Friends of the Trees of Ely said two of their other trees were also vandalized last month.

A reward of $800 is being offered by the veterans memorial group for information about the incident.

Anyone with information can contact the Ely Police Department at 218-266-5477.