Just months after the Selective Service Act of 1917, many young Forest Park men were called to serve in the First World War. Forest Parkers supported the efforts through Liberty Bonds, patriotic service, and more. To send out just over 50 young men in a grand farewell, Forest Park planned a parade and reception in September 1917. Civil War veteran, Lt. Colonel Henry R. Brinkerhoff, was selected to deliver the address.
Brinkerhoff was a minister’s son from Ohio who left medical school when he was 23 to enroll in the Union Army in 1861. He became a lieutenant colonel of the 52nd United States Colored Infantry, which recruited men from Mississippi to fight for the Union.
He and his company were in action at Antietam in 1862 and he wrote the History of the Thirtieth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry: From its organization, to the fall of Vicksburg, Miss. and later a novel, Nah-Nee-Ta: A Tale of the Navajos, based on his time in New Mexico. He settled in Oak Park, was active in civic life, and is now buried at Forest Home Cemetery.