On Friday, the Providence City Council and City Archives dedicated a new monument to U.S. Army Infantry soldier, Private 1^st Class Carlo Lafazia, killed in action during World War I. Lafazia was born in 1897 to Italian immigrants who settled on Admiral Street in Providence’s Elmhurst/Wanskuck neighborhood. Lafazia enlisted in the U.S. Army’s 16^th Infantry Regiment in 1917.

The regiment was one of the first American battalions to land on French soil. Private Lafazia was killed on October 11, 1918, in France, fighting in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, a final Allied assault against the Germans that eventually ended the Great War one month later. Lafazia was 20 years old, and his remains were never found. Private Lafazia was called an “emblem of Italian loyalty to the Stars and Stripes,” and in 1933, the Providence Board of Aldermen honored Lafazia by naming memorial square after him.