Civil War memorial dedicated in 1894 on Cleveland's Public Square, with a sandstone underground Memorial Room said to echo with the voices of Cuyahoga County soldiers.
3 Public Square, Cleveland, OH 44113
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free admission to the Memorial Room and grounds. Once-yearly underground tunnel tours are free but ticketed and fill quickly.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved plaza on Public Square; the above-ground Memorial Room is accessible. The annual underground tunnel tour involves narrow stairs and is not wheelchair-accessible.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1894 · Civil War Memorial · Public Square · Levi Scofield Design · Cuyahoga County
Following the Civil War, Cuyahoga County leaders sought to honor the more than 9,000 local residents who served the Union. In 1879, a commission was established to raise funds and select a design; architect and Civil War veteran Levi T. Scofield was eventually chosen to design the monument, which combined an obelisk-like central shaft with an enclosed Memorial Room.
Ground was broken in 1888, and the completed monument was dedicated on July 4, 1894. It rises from the southeast quadrant of Public Square in downtown Cleveland. The central shaft is constructed of Quincy granite and stands 125 feet tall, topped by a 15-foot bronze personification of Liberty. Four exterior bronze sculptural groups depict scenes of cavalry, artillery, infantry, and navy service.
The sandstone Memorial Room set into the base contains marble panels mounted on the walls and inscribed with the names of more than 9,000 Cuyahoga County soldiers and sailors. The room also holds four large bronze relief sculptures by Scofield: Women's Soldiers' and Sailors' Aid Society, Beginning of the War in Ohio, Emancipation of the Slaves, and End of the War at City Point, Virginia. Busts of General James Barnett and Scofield himself, alongside relief portraits of six officers who died in service, complete the program.
Beneath and around the Memorial Room runs a network of sandstone tunnels that serve as structural support for the granite shaft above (a single block of which weighs as much as 100 tons). Although urban legend has connected these tunnels to the Underground Railroad, they were built in the late 1880s and early 1890s — decades after Emancipation — purely as load-bearing infrastructure. During the Cold War, the tunnels reportedly served briefly as an emergency civil-defense shelter. They are normally closed to the public, but the monument's caretakers open them for guided tours roughly once a year.
Sources
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument's reputation as one of downtown Cleveland's more compelling haunted sites rests on two distinct layers: the public Memorial Room above ground and the labyrinth of structural sandstone tunnels beneath it.
In the Memorial Room, visitors report photographs that capture translucent figures standing among the marble name panels, and occasional reports of cold spots and the sense of an unseen presence. Cleveland Magazine's 'Hidden Cleveland' coverage notes the long-running tradition of soldier-figure photo anomalies and disembodied voices that visitors hear when no one else is present.
The more concentrated lore attaches to the underground tunnels. According to a Cleveland Vintage feature, attendees of the rare guided tunnel tours have repeatedly described footsteps echoing in passages where no one is walking, voices speaking in indistinct phrases, and the feeling of something brushing past them in the narrow sandstone corridors. Multiple writers note that the apparent consistency of these reports across years of unrelated visitors is what gives the legend its weight.
An urban legend incorrectly identifies the tunnels as a stop on the Underground Railroad. They are not — the monument was built in 1888-1894, decades after Emancipation — and the tunnels serve only as structural support for the granite shaft above. The lore is consistently framed as soldier apparitions tied to the names inscribed on the Memorial Room's marble walls, rather than to the structure of the tunnels themselves.
Notable Entities
Descend into Levi Scofield's sandstone Memorial Room beneath the monument to view the marble panels inscribed with the names of more than 9,000 Cuyahoga County residents who served the Union during the Civil War, along with four bronze relief sculptures of women's aid societies, the beginning of the war in Ohio, emancipation, and the war's end at City Point, Virginia.
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