The Wayne County Doughboy

Standing in downtown Monticello is a bronze Doughboy, the nickname given to American infantrymen of the First World War. This statue was dedicated in nineteen twenty-three, honoring the men of Wayne County, Kentucky, who died in that war.

Doughboy monuments appeared in hundreds of American towns during the nineteen twenties, most cast from the same few standard molds and paid for through local subscriptions. The name itself is older than the war, traced back to Civil War soldiers, though how it attached to the flour-dusted uniform of the infantry remains debated. What is not debated is the loss each of these statues represents. Every name from one Kentucky county would have been felt across every family and farm road in a place this size.