WEST POINT — Over the past few months, Blair Key and Barry White have been fielding more calls that usual.
One of the more recent calls came from West Point Mayor Robbie Robinson.
Robinson reached out to Key, owner of Columbus Marble Works, and White, director of historic preservation for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, to inquire about the possibility of moving the Confederate monument located on city property next to City Hall.
“We’ve probably had about 10 calls from municipalities and counties about moving monuments,” White said. “Most of them just want to know about the process.”
Aside from Lowndes County, whose notice of intent was filed with MDAH on Friday, most of the local governments are in the fact-gathering stage.
It’s much the same for Key, whose company has had informal talk “with about a dozen” cities and counties about moving monuments. To date, Columbus Marble Works has been contracted to relocate just one monument — moving one at Ole Miss across campus to a cemetery where Confederate soldiers are buried.
“I’ve given some cost estimates to some others,” Key said. “I think, right now, they are just trying to get an idea of how much it will cost and what the process is.”
Robinson said that describes West Point’s position at the moment.
“I think I’ve only had a couple of people say anything about the monument in the last year,” Robinson said. “But it came up during our special (call) meeting earlier this month. We couldn’t take it up then, but I did start making some calls, just to find out what the steps are.”
Robinson said based on a call he made to Key, it will cost the city between $70,000 to $75,000 to move the monument, which was erected in 1907.
“It should be pretty easy to move it,” Key said. “It’s bigger than the one at Ole Miss, but it’s easy to access, both the current location and at the cemetery.”
The most likely new venue, Robinson said, would be the city-owned Greenwood Cemetery.
In addition to being designated as a Mississippi Landmark, which requires MDAH approval to be modified or moved, the West Point monument is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places because it is located on the grounds of City Hall, which was added to the Register in 2009.
“That really won’t affect anything as far as relocating it, though, because it doesn’t require federal funding,” White said.
Robinson said the presence of the monument hasn’t been a hot-button topic around town, but he’s not opposed to relocating it.
“The big question is where is the money going to come from,” Robinson said. “We just finished our budget. We have an $18,000 surplus, which isn’t much. That’s probably the biggest question: Where’s the money going to come from? The city doesn’t have it, not in this year’s budget.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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