Named for Gordon Battelle, the 4.1-acre Battelle Riverfront Park spreads along the river near Columbus City Hall in downtown Columbus. Established in 1983 and named for Gordon Battelle, it was funded by the Battelle Memorial Institute. As you move through this compact riverfront green, you breeze past the James W. Barney Pickaweekee Story Grove, moved here from a nearby children's park, and a remarkable congregation of monuments and memorials.
Notice the Columbus Firefighters Memorial (1958) and the Spanish–American War Memorial (1937) anchoring older civic memories. Nearby stand Their Spirits Circle the Earth (1987), To Honor the Immigrants (1992), and Alfred Tibor's sculpture Freedom (1985). Many of these pieces arrived here in 2016 when monuments were relocated from the Harry E. Richter Workers Memorial Park — itself built in 2000 and once home to a memorial originally placed in Franklin Park in 1992.
The Richter site made way for the Michael B. Coleman Government Center, which opened two years later. Along the Scioto River, recall that the replica Santa Maria Ship & Museum was docked here beginning in 1991 as part of the city's 1992 Christopher Columbus Quincentennial Jubilee. Notice the Firefighters Memorial, the Spanish–American War Memorial, and Freedom standing near the riverbank where the Santa Maria once docked.