The American Legion Post 251 was organized by sixteen Montgomery veterans on August 11, 1919, and was named for Private Freeman Bower, the first local man and the first Lycoming County man killed in action in the First World War. A native of Elimsport, Bower served in Company B, 6th U.S. Engineers, 3rd Infantry Division, and was killed on March 30th, 1918, near the River Somme while helping rebuild a bridge; although he has a tombstone in Fairview Cemetery, he is buried in the American cemetery in Bony, France. The post first met above the W. E. Frey hardware store on Main Street, then moved in the 1960s to the old Sechler House at 185 Broad Street before the present building was constructed there in 1968. Montgomery had a long tradition of veterans' organizations, beginning with Civil War veterans who organized the Colonel David Mongtomery Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and it also had Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 743, which closed in 2016, but the American Legion proved the most enduring. After World War II, the post added the name of Aaron Noll Decker, the first Montgomery man killed in action in that conflict. Born in Montgomery on January 16, 1915, Decker volunteered for the Army on August 29th, 1941, served as a Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, and was killed while leading his company in defense of a hill in North Africa on March 29th, 1943. His brother Delmar was also killed in action when he was shot down over Holland in February 1944, and their remains were transferred together to Montgomery for burial at Fairview Cemetery. The service and sacrifice of Freeman Bower, the Decker brothers, and other Montgomery area veterans remained an inspiration to the community they fought to defend.