In 1919, as Bristol was growing after the Great War and needed a new high school, Albert F. Rockwell offered the city 12 acres in Dunbar Meadows north of South Street for the school if the city would build a 100-foot-wide road, construct a bridge over the river at Mellen Street, and finish the school within two years. Construction was delayed by the removal of two unused water plants and the need to re-channel the river, and Rockwell then served as construction supervisor at no cost to the city. Work on the school began in 1921, and Memorial Boulevard officially opened on November 11, 1921, in a triple celebration with Armistice Day and the dedication of a new fire house. From Downes Street to Main Street, the road measured 4,400 feet long and 100 feet wide with a central plot; grass and trees were planted after the opening, and mountain laurels were planted in 1931. The new high school, designed by Wilson Potter, opened in September 1922 and was officially dedicated the following year. The World War I monument, designed by Lt. Harold A. Hayden, has a circular base with steps leading to a five-point star, bronze plaques listing all from Bristol who entered service, and above them the names of those who died beneath the words “These Gave Their Lives.” From the roadway to its tip, the monument is 37 1/2 feet tall, and it was dedicated on Selchepray Day, April 19, 1924, commemorating the Battle of Selchepray, in which eight Bristol men were killed in action, several were wounded, and 27 were taken prisoner and held in German prison camps until the Armistice. The boulevard and park also came to include memorials honoring service and sacrifice in the Revolutionary War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, and the service of Bristol citizen soldiers, as well as a captured German artillery piece, a Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall site marker, and a bicentennial time capsule.