National Parks:

Information on the Condition of Civil War Monuments at Selected Sites

RCED-95-80FS, Feb 1, 1995

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Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the National Park Service's (NPS) maintenance of Civil War monuments at selected historic sites, focusing on the: (1) monuments' overall condition; and (2) cost estimates for repairing the monuments in poor condition.

GAO found that: (1) 98 percent of the monuments at the 11 sites reviewed are in good or fair condition and need no or limited repairs and rehabilitation; (2) in general, the remaining 2 percent of the monuments need substantial repairs for broken or missing parts and pieces, chips, fractures, or cracks in the base or statuary, and wear or erosion of the base, bronzes, or stone inscriptions; (3) weather and vandalism have caused most of the monuments' structural problems, and other causes of deterioration include erosion, structural deficiencies, and neglect; and (4) the Park Service estimates that it would cost about $2.4 million to repair 63 percent of the monuments in poor condition, with most of those monuments requiring less than $10,000 in repairs.