Veteran writes book about the history of the Bannock County Veterans Memorial Building
POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) - When coming to the Bannock County Veterans Memorial Building, you can tell there is a long history there, but little has been documented on it until now.
The building's historian Miguel Dominic published a book entitled Lest We Forget, documenting the origin story of the building.
"One thing that I found really fascinating is that there really wasn't much information on the building," Dominic said. "I looked on Google. I looked in the library, and there was just a little bit of information."
When digging through the archives, Dominic found out that the Memorial was $50,000 to build and built by Frank Paradice Jr., the same person who constructed the Brady Chapel and Pocatello High School.
When it was finished, the Memorial was already a historical landmark.
"At the time when this building was built and completed in 1926, it was the biggest Veterans Memorial building in the U.S. at that time," Dominic said.
Now the building is used in many ways. Fifteen different veteran organizations meet there every month. The facility also hosts private events from birthday parties to weddings receptions.
But what stands out most is its museum, and how it shows how life has evolved for a soldier over the years.
"It's neat to see when you look at the modern-day soldier and then you look back at some of the equipment the earliest soldiers had, and you marvel in that like, wow, that's amazing what they survived with," Dominic said.
When flipping through the book's pages, the Gate City's military history is present all over.
"The whole idea of this book was so that people can look at it and go, oh, I didn't even know that existed, or they see a family member and they go, oh, hey, that's my cousin, or something like that," Dominic said. "So that's the whole idea of the book, just to give some history behind this building so people don't forget."
If you would like to purchase the book, it is $25 and can be found at the museum or here.
