This address surveys how places were commemorated in the region, beginning with ancient rock carvings and painted panels and continuing with memorial practices by Native peoples and frontier settlers, some violent, such as impaling or tomahawk markers, and later habits like blazed trees and nicked rifles. It laments long periods of neglect, recounts a revival of monuments and tablets, and urges more systematic marking of industrial, commercial, and domestic sites—particularly charcoal iron furnaces—so local history and landscape memory are preserved and can inspire future cultural and literary work.