In the late 1990's the Jefferson Davis Highway marker originally placed in Vancouver, Washington, in 1939 was quietly removed by the City Manager and a City Councilman with a liberal political agenda. We spent about 18-months fighting the City of Vancouver to reinstall the marker.

Instead, we finally succeeded in having the marker placed outside the Clark County Historical Museum on the corner of Main & 16th in downtown Vancouver.

Five years later however, a new Director assumed command of the Clark County Historical Museum and worked tirelessly to have it removed from the grounds by any means possible. With protests from the UDC and SCV, the marker was moved "temporarily" in the fall of 2006, with the sanction of the Clark County Historical Commission, allegedly to keep it safe during the construction of a new handicapped-accessible entrance. We knew it would never go back, and sure enough we had another fight on our hands...

We took our fight to the Clark County Historical Commission, who was the body that had to approve the "temporary" move of the marker in the first place. After some debate, the majority of the Commission sided with our Cause, and would support us in getting the marker placed back at the Museum, and even back at its original location possibly.

At the next City Council meeting, Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard came down swiftly and severely, and rather rudely, that the marker was in fact considered a "gift" that the City no longer wanted, that the marker would never again sit on City property, and that the issue of the marker would/should not come before him again. The Vancouver City slogan of "Pride, Progress, and Possibilities" only pertains to those issues and people that the very "progressive" Council deems worthy. Neither the history of Jefferson Davis in the Pacific-Northwest or the marker itself that is on the Clark County Historical Register, mean anything to the government officials or the Director of the Historical Museum. "Progress" has seemingly trumped truth and history.

Faced with the absolutism of the City Council, a Historical Museum Director with a very biased liberal stance towards history, and an Historical Commission that was rendered ineffective by the Council, there is no choice but to procure a piece of land of our own specifically for the placement of the Jefferson Davis Highway marker. This is how the idea for the Jefferson Davis Park came about.

We are in the process of purchasing a piece of land, have had our Articles of Incorporation approved by the State, have obtained a Federal Tax-ID number, registered our previously un-addressed plot of land with the County, submitted our 501c3 documents, and have formed a Board of Directors for the Jefferson Davis Park!

The Park property is only 15-20 yards from Interstate-5! And our three large flagpoles that we will be putting up will literally be seen by thousands of commuters and travellers each day!

Another planned benefit of the Park is that it will be a beautiful and peaceful place of reverence honoring our Confederate ancestors due to the hundreds of gray bricks forming a small memorial plaza around the marker and its interpretive plaque, each engraved with veterans names.

But, none of this is possible without financial assistance from our brothers in the SCV. We are looking for donations and we are also selling bricks to raise the much needed funds. The gray bricks with engraved black lettering gives our fellow Compatriots the ability to honor their ancestor's memory, or their own family or business, or even their Camp. So far we have raised more than $10,000, and had the three 40-foot flagpoles donated to us! But we need to raise $10,000 more by the last day of August when we close on the property. We need your help immediately!!!

Total, we will need to raise a minimum of $30,000 to cover the land, the closing costs, the bricks, landscaping and fencing, the laying of the memorial bricks, etc.

Please support us in this worthy endeavor, please help us spread the word about the Jefferson Davis Park, and please support us by purchasing a brick or two for yourself.

Thank you so much for your help and support.

Brent Jacobs 

Col. Isaac W. Smith Camp #458
Portland, OR
Oregon Provisional Division Commander
National Graves and Monuments Committee SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS

"Let no personal prejudice interfere with good of the Cause."   ~ Brig. Gen. M. Jeff Thompson, CSA