American Stonehenge - A Tribute to WWI

Taken from roadsideamerica.com The first American replica Stonehenge, and still one of the most dramatic, was actually erected in error. Sam Hill, a wealthy railroad executive, known to history principally as an "advocate of good roads," built his Stonehenge in Maryhill, Washington on a lonely bluff overlooking the Columbia River south of Goldendale. A pacifist, Hill mistakenly believed that Stonehenge had been a site of human sacrifice. By building a replica, he intended to memorialize the soldiers of Klickitat County who had lost their lives in World War I, a reminder that "humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war." Sam Hill's Stonehenge, built to scale out of reinforced concrete, was dedicated in 1918 -- the first World War I monument in America -- but it wasn't finished until twelve years later. By then, Maryhill, an experimental Quaker community, had been abandoned, and Sam Hill, who was known for his erratic bursts of manic energy, was in a deep depression. He died in 1931, living just long enough to see his Stonehenge completed. He is buried at the base of the bluff because he didn't get along with his family, and there is no easy path to his grave because he wanted to be left alone.