The town of Hebron will be the last and only Porter County stop on the Veterans Memorial Parkway after town officials in June approved leasing land for a memorial honoring veterans in the region who served in the Middle East.

Officials involved with the Friends of the Veterans Memorial Parkway said the decision makes sense. Memorials along the parkway are situated chronologically, moving forward in time as the parkway travels east from St. John, and the land, between Indiana 231 and Wilson Street, would be difficult to use for something other than park space.

“It’s always been in the parkway commission plan to honor all of the veterans conflicts,” said Don Ensign, who represents Ward 2 on the Hebron Town Council and also serves on the Friends of the Veterans Memorial Parkway board.

The newest property will be called the Northwest Indiana Middle East Veterans Memorial and will honor those from Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, Jasper, Starke and Pulaski counties who died in service to the United States in Middle Eastern conflicts, according to a release.

The memorial originally was going to be on the Lake County side of County Line Road, Ensign said.

“When our opportunity came up, I jumped at the chance” to have the memorial in Hebron, Ensign said. “(The project will) make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear with proper improvements.”

The vision of the parkway, said board president Mitch Barloga, who also is the transportation planning manager and active transportation planner for the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, is a series of memorials remembering the armed forces along a 15-mile route.

Once fully in place, the parkway, according to its website will begin with a Revolutionary War memorial in St. John and end at the Hebron memorial to those who have served in the Middle East. All of the memorials will be along Indiana 231 or nearby.

“When we were looking to work with Hebron, we always knew Hebron was at the end of the parkway, and we decided it was the proper location for a memorial for our Middle East veterans,” Barloga said. “It turns that parcel into something that can’t be built upon.”

At almost 1.5 acres, the spot is a bit elevated and in a great location for everybody to see, he said.

“All together, we were very pleased with the location we were able to cobble out,” he said.

The site will connect to the Stagecoach Inn, which serves as the location for the town’s historical society, and other trail ways as well, Ensign said.

“I’m very excited and our (town) council has backed me 100% on getting this moving,” he said. Ensign said a Next Level trail grant from the state of $303,000 and around $80,000 in donated labor, material and equipment will assist with the trail portion of the project.

Ensign doesn’t yet know what the veterans memorial will look like, but it will soon feature a lit flagpole to mark the spot, and the trail work could begin in the fall. Officials said an expected site dedication service is planned for Veterans Day in November.

A committee including representatives from the Hebron Park Board and the veterans community will help design the site, Ensign said.

“The people who served need to be honored,” he said.

Amy Lavalley is a freelancer.