Memorials in Butler County honor first responders
First responders from all over the country are flocking to Butler County to compete in the weeklong 2024 Can-Am Police-Fire Games. Along the way, competitors may stop by these sites throughout the county and pay respects to their fellow responders who lost their lives in the line of duty.
Perhaps the most poignant memorial lies at the Cranberry Township Volunteer Fire Company station on Route 19, which has on display a piece of steel from the World Trade Center which was destroyed during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
According to Chief Scott Garing, of Cranberry Township emergency services, it was current Assistant Chief Bruce Hezlep who started the effort to obtain the World Trade Center piece months after the attacks.
“They had to drive up with the tractor and a trailer, and they had to vow that the piece of steel would always be used as a memorial of some sort,” Garing said. “It's honestly one of the larger pieces of steel that you'll find from the structure.”
The Saxonburg municipal building, which also contains the police headquarters, has a memorial to former police Chief Gregory Adams, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in January 1980 in a case that drew national attention. The murderer, Donald Webb, evaded capture until his death in 1999, and his whereabouts were not discovered until 2017.
According to former Saxonburg Museum former curator Fred Caesar, the memorial was originally erected in 1981.
In October 2022, Alameda Park in Butler officially opened the First Responders Memorial and Pavilion. The memorial, funded by the Butler AM Rotary Club, consists of a large granite stone with a plaque featuring a poem from retired Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. George Hahn, and in front of it, three smaller stones with the names of 17 emergency services personnel in Butler County who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
At the Harris Bridge over Slippery Rock Creek at McConnells Mill State Park, located just west of the county line in Lawrence County, there is a memorial plaque dedicated to two rescuers — Anthony Murdick and Scott Wilson of the Unionville Fire Department — who died while trying to rescue a kayaker from the creek in April 2001. The kayaker, 23-year-old Neil Balcer of Marion Township, was never found. Both rescuers were 25 years old.
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