New plaque at Onalaska Cemetery honors veterans of Civil War who are buried there

Onalaska’s city cemetery now has a new monument to veterans of a long-ago war.

Local residents and members of the American Legion worked together to commission a plaque that has the names of 58 Civil War veterans buried at the cemetery along Main Street in Onalaska.

During a dedication ceremony on Thursday, Legion member Bob Muth said he wasn’t aware of any Civil War vets being in the Onalaska cemetery until hearing about research done by local historians Lois Riniker and Barb Rouse.

The project also included physical work to clean up the gravestones of those veterans of the Civil War, most of which have been at the cemetery for a century or more.

The plaque honoring the Onalaska veterans is installed on a wall of a shelter area inside the cemetery.