Vandals smashed a 225-year old monument to Christopher Columbus in Baltimore early Monday morning. The edifice is documented as the oldest still standing in the nation dedicated to the explorer, the Baltimore Brew first reported.

The monument is located directly across the street from Herring Run Park, northeast of Lake Montebello. It was built by Frenchman Chevalier d’Anemours, or d’Anmour, at Belmont, his 50-acre estate near Harford Road and North Avenue.



Someone took a sledgehammer to Baltimore’s 200-yr-old monument to Christopher Columbus early this morning https://t.co/Tc7ZoPXfUr pic.twitter.com/eaJzsBeTMV — Baltimore Brew (@BaltimoreBrew) August 21, 2017

According to Baltimore Brew, an online video shows an individual smashing the base, which contained the inscription: Sacred to the Memory of Chris. Columbus Oct. XII MDCC VIIIC. The vandals destroyed nearly all the text on the base of the 44-foot-tall obelisk.

The vandal left a sign by the destruction, saying “Racism: Tear it down,” and another sign saying “The future is racial and economic justice.”

The vandalism comes in the wake of Baltimore authorities tearing down monuments of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee last week after violent events, focused on the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia occurred.

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