Matthew Moore: I’m here with Jacqueline Froelich, Ozarks at Large senior news producer, who’s been reporting on the mysterious installation of a new 15-foot-tall white limestone Confederate obelisk in Eureka Springs historic city cemetery. If you’ve missed the previous coverage, let’s quickly get you up to speed: this obelisk was installed on a privately owned plot, initially as a memorial to the Confederacy. Since your coverage began, local officials have been involved and there was discussion of potentially removing the object. Initially city officials were unaware of the monument, permitted by then-Cemetery Superintendent Bruce Wright, who’s since resigned after your story aired?
Jacqueline Froelich: Right. City Councilman Harry Meyer, contacted me in early June, alarmed by the installation. The reason he contacted me is because a few years ago I reported that a local resident, Koltin Massie, had been installing perpetual Confederate flags on numerous graves in the cemetery. Massie is Commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ Seaborn Jones Cotten Camp in Eureka Springs. In 2021, the cemetery commission passed a rule to allow the flags to remain, unless a descendent requests removal. Today, rebel flags are planted all over the cemetery. Massie’s new endeavor, this obelisk, appears to be an escalation. On it, he attached a round metal plaque, the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America, and another metal medallion to mark United Confederate Veterans. Turns out Massie deeded a plot of land in the cemetery to erect the monument. I queried him in early June, and he emailed me a statement saying the $10,000 monument commemorates Carroll County Confederates who served and died in the Civil War. In a subsequent media interview, however, he claimed the monument honors both Confederate and Union soldiers. I pointed out this discrepancy in an email to the town mayor—and cemetery commissioners.
MM: So was the monument legally placed?
JF: According to an expert at the Arkansas Municipal League, it is. I was told cemetery grave markers are a form of free speech, and that this monument sits atop a deeded burial plot. Problem is Massie never mentioned this was a grave marker. He’s apparently claiming so now to keep the monument in place.
MM: So now Massie is claiming that this is the equivalent of a future gravestone marker for himself?
JF: That’s right, in a statement he issued last week to the cemetery commission, he has now made that claim.
MM: So has the city taken any action on the Confederate obelisk?
JF: While Cemetery Commission Chair L.B. Wilson did issue a statement early on saying the monument is in compliance, he did express concern about the lack of installation disclosure to the commission and city officials. He also expressed concern about the monument’s message. City Councilman Harry Meyer, however, continues to press for the monument’s removal, which he had placed on tonight's city council agenda. That item, however, was pulled by Eureka Springs Mayor Butch Berry, saying it’s not an issue for council to decide. The only cemetery commissioner who’s been willing to talk to us on the record is Treasurer David Danvers, who has argued the historic cemetery is not a memorial park. Initially, he proposed removing it, but now Koltin Massie is claiming the monument is a gravestone, under which he and his future family—he’s currently unmarried with no kids—will be buried someday. Danvers and I spoke late last week about this.
“Since that point in time Mister Massie, you know, indicated complete compliance with the wishes going forward, he will be buried there which was information that we did not have – and he will put his name on the monument.”David Danvers
JF: Danvers initially told me Massie resorted to deception and fraud to erect the monument failing to fully disclose his plan.
“The way we're viewing it now, it is as it is. We will not make any attempts to have that removed and we're moving on with our other challenges and and opportunities that we have here at the cemetery.”David Davners
MM: So it’s over?
JF: It appears so. Massie in his statement to the commission insists he’s simply honoring the Confederate history of Carroll County.
MM: And what about the perpetual Confederate flags that keep showing up at the Eureka Springs City Cemetery?
JF: At a recent cemetery commission meeting, a new rule was proposed and subsequently approved giving the commission authority over flag and plaque placement on graves in the future. Now, any individuals or groups wishing to place flags or plaques on graves not under their ownership must first obtain permission from the Cemetery Commission. If a plot owner or family does not want the placement of any flags or plaques, they should notify the Cemetery Commission.
And as I’ve reported previously, it’s likely this Confederate monument is among the first to be erected since the removal of more than 160 such monuments and memorials in recent years triggered by the Black Lives Matter Movement. Such iconography is problematic because the Confederate Army did not fight for the United States of America. Confederates fought against the United States, and the Union army, for secession from the U.S. The monuments also symbolize a century of horrific enslavement of Africans and African Americans.
MM: That’s Ozarks at Large reporter, Jacqueline Froelich, who is a reporter of record tracing back to 1998 on Ozarks African American history, unearthing racial cleansings, profiling the Ku Klux Klan as well as the White Patriot movement in Arkansas.
Update: a local civil rights lawyer is currently investigating the installation of the monument as a possible civil rights violation. More details may be forthcoming on this story.
