Photo by Jim Tate Craig Schafer, left, and Marc Klaith stand next to the beam from the World Trade Center at Memorial Park in Marshall.

The 9-11 Memorial near downtown Marshall is a place to visit and remember the horror that occurred at several locations on September 11, 2001. It’s a quiet place, the centerpiece of which is a steel beam from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center that came down due to a terrorist attack that day.

What brought that beam to Marshall was an effort of many individuals, with support from an entire community. Today, it serves as a reminder of that day, the resiliency of a nation, and serves as a tribute to those who lost their lives on 9-11.

“When it came down to it, we wanted it to be three things — it had to be in a prominent, visible place like this; it had to be accessible, so people could touch it; and there had to be an American flag flown 24-7 (there are two),” said Marc Klaith, the fire chief at the time and one of the individuals who woked hard behind the scenes to get Memorial Park from drawing board to reality.

Klaith and the gentleman who went out to retrieve the beam — city council member Craig Schafer — sat on blocks that surround the beam on a recent early morning and talked about how it came to be, what it stands for, and what they hope it will be in the future.

“When a disaster happens, people run out, and first responders run in,” said Klaith,

A trio of concrete statues face the beam and include a fireman, policeman, and a first responder. The fireman was a gift from Klaith’s in-laws, Fran and Syl DeBaere, and was made by a concrete company in Vesta. The other two statues were purchased from a Sioux Falls company. All have been painted bronze.The beam is lit at night by lights imbedded near its base.

Individual stars are etched into the pavers that surround the beam, and are color-coded to represent casualties at all sites that day: blue stars for police; red stars for firemen; black stars for all others. The stars also represent lives lost on the attack on the Pentagon, and the Flight 93 crash site in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

Each September 11, there is a commemorative program at the beam site, and each year, the crowds increase. And the ages attending run the gamut, from those who remember what they were doing that day, to school classes in the area whose students weren’t born in 2001. “It’s great to see these young people attend,” said Klaith. “It’s an educational tool for them, as well.”

Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes was working with the Minnesota Extension Service at the time and was doing a management plan for a local turkey producer. “It takes half a day to get those through and this one wanted it done. I heard the news and continued doing that. When I finished, I became more focused on what was going on at the time,” said Byrnes.

He remembers that Schafer and himself were interviewed by WCCA reporter John Williams (radio name) and “he asked why we were doing this ln Marshall, over a thousands miles from New York. I made the point to him that this is one country, and what affects one part of the country affects every other part of the country,” he said. “It was a point that was foreign to his line of questioning.”

Byrnes said that after the first few memorial programs the question was raised whether to continue them annually. “I wondered each year who will come out but it’s been a good turnout every year of those who want to remember what happened, even if they weren’t alive then, to think about what happened to the country, and the impact it’s had afterwards.”

Though it was the largest act of terrorism on U.S. soil, it did have some good come out of it, feels Director of Public Safety Jim Marshall.

He was a school resource officer for the Marshall school district back then and remembers listening to radio reports on his way to work at the old high school, now the Middle School.

“I remember it like it was yesterday. I listened to the radio talking about it and went into the school, there’s a main lobby and in a corner a television. I said maybe we should turn that on. I remember standing there in the lobby by the high school office and watching it all transpire.”

There’s young police officers in the department who don’t remember a thing about that day, and it changed the landscape of domestic security forever, said Marshall.

“Homeland Security didn’t exist then. There’s more of an emphasis on disaster preparedness plans. Look at how it’s impacted how we travel today, how bags are screened, how people are screened.”

Before retiring, Schafer worked for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Shortly after 9-11, as part of training surrounding large amounts of debris management, he went to New York with several others from the state. That’s where the idea to bring a beam to Marshall began.”It was a Pearl Harbor event,” he said.

While in New York he saw how the rubble was transported to Staten Island and screened, inch by inch, with a pile nearby of beams from the structure. He asked someone about how to take possession of a beam. Basically, it involved a letter from the mayor — easy enough to get, thought Schafer — and he took it from there.

Tholen Auto donated a truck for the trip, Schafer paid for the gas, and a friend, John Campion, supplied the trailer. “I had to sign something with Tholen and give them $1 to make it official, that I was renting it,” said Schafer. “When I got back, and returned the truck, they gave me the dollar back.”

It was that kind of support that permeated the community surrounding the 9-11 memorial effort, said Klaith. “The two Rotary clubs worked together on the clock that’s standing near the arched entryway,” said Klaith. Other service groups were involved. Schwan’s was very supportive, the VFW and Legion were, too, and individuals like Harry Weilage were also instrumental in getting it to where it is today, he said. “Everyone was so supportive, and it was built by local companies. Bladholm Construction was the general contractor,” he said.

Gene Ernst, working for a Twin Cities architectural firm which had done previous work for the city, was the architect and the early model he submitted “was exactly how we envisioned it,” said Klaith.

The beam sat at the fire department for nine years and some originally wanted it displayed in the middle of the Tiger Lake retention pond. “That wasn’t big enough,” said Schafer.

Through a number of stages — and some blind luck — it was displayed beautifully at Memorial Park, where it draws a large number of individuals every year in somber reflection of 9-11, the lives lost, and what that day has meant to the country.

Schafer said it’s his hope that what the memorial means will continue “60 years down the road, that it still has a presence here in Marshall. I’d like for the memory of it to remain clear.”

“It’s kind of a crazy world we live in right now but there’s a lot of good that came from 9-11 — we are all safer now due to this, odd as that is to say. A lot of good people died that day, and we should remember that,” said Klaith.