George Eber Duclo Memorial
Near Manitou Springs, Colorado
This memorial honors George Eber Duclo, the first soldier from Manitou Springs to die in the First World War. He was a Marine private, raised in the Colorado resort town of Manitou Springs. Duclo was killed in action in June, nineteen eighteen, at the Battle of Belleau Wood in France, one of the savage fights where United States Marines earned a fearsome reputation against the German army.
His hometown did not forget him. The people of Manitou Springs later raised money to commission a bronze doughboy statue honoring all the soldiers of the Great War, with a special tie to their own fallen Marine. It stands on a great block of Colorado granite in the town's Memorial Park, a community's grief cast in metal and stone for a young man who never came home.
