Spirit of the American Doughboy
Near Fort Smith, Arkansas
The striding soldier you see here is the Spirit of the American Doughboy, one of the most popular World War One memorials in the United States, created by sculptor E. M. Viquesney. More than a hundred of his bronze doughboys survive across thirty-five states.
Van Buren holds a special place in that story. Arkansas's very first World War One memorial was dedicated right here in Crawford County, on the third of November, nineteen seventeen, honoring the first three American servicemen from the state to die in the war. It went up while the fighting overseas was still raging, before most of the nation's doughboy statues were even cast in the nineteen twenties and thirties.
It stands as a reminder of how quickly this small river town moved to remember its fallen.
