Monument Terrace

Monument Terrace began as a city project to provide a better way for people to get around a steep hill and is a great place to take pictures.

Featuring 139 steps and 10 landings, visitors will get some exercise while viewing each memorial at the Monument Terrace in Lynchburg, Virginia. In the early 1880s, a project began to provide better access along the steep hill that occupied the Court and Church Streets area. At the time, the city engineer was August Forsberg. Forsberg designed a series of steps and landings from Court Street that culminated in a semicircular staircase at the intersection of Ninth and Church Streets. The plan was to add a simple iron fountain in the middle of that semicircle. On May 30, 1883, five firemen were killed while fighting a tragic fire in Lynchburg. At that point, the fountain was redesigned, and a firemen's statue was added as a memorial to those 5 men, honoring their ultimate sacrifice.

Monument Terrace was updated in the early 1920s to honor the 43 men from Lynchburg that were killed during World War 1. A local architect named Aubrey Chesterman made a new design with parallel staircases to frame the statue area and remove the fountain. It was replaced by a bronze statue of a World War 1 infantry soldier, and the names of those that had died were etched behind the soldier statue. If you climb all 139 steps, you will view many memorials such as the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars 1 & 2, Korea, Vietnam, and even today's conflicts. Each of the 10 landings has some type of memorial. If visitors do not want to climb the 139 steps, they do have an elevator on Court Street across from the City Hall building. There is a kiosk at the top of the steps with a walking tour brochure beginning at that very spot.