The idea began at a meeting of Civil War veterans on October 22, 1879. Ohio's legislature allowed a countywide tax for a monument in 1880. Levi T. Scofield, a local veteran and architect, designed a combination of a tablet room and an obelisk, and made the sculptures too.
The monument was dedicated on July 4, 1894, on the southeast quadrant of Public Square. It honors the more than 9,000 people from Cuyahoga County who served the Union during the Civil War.
It is open to the public free of charge, and the original plan to put a statue in the center of the square lost out to the railroad companies, who claimed the busy intersection for streetcar lines.