Wayne County honored its war dead and wounded from across its cities, towns, and rural sections, calling them the real heroes of the war and declaring that the state and every part of it should never fail to pay them tribute. The site was dedicated on June 25, 1925, as the Wayne County Memorial Community Building, and it was associated with Brigadier General Kenneth C. Royall, an original trustee of the Wayne County Memorial Association, an attorney whose office was about 100 feet west of the site, the first Secretary of the Army from 1947 to 1949, and the last U.S. Secretary of War. The memorial map organized the names of Wayne County servicemen by communities and townships, including Grantham, Mount Olive, Indian Springs Township, Brogden Township, New Hope Township, Goldsboro Township, Saulston Township, Stoney Creek Township, Buck Swamp Township, Pikeville Township, Nahunta Township, and Great Swamp Township, and it recorded those lost in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.