DENTON, N.C. (WGHP) — A Confederate statue that had been the center of controversy in Winston-Salem for several years is being moved to a park in Davidson County.

Right off of North Carolina Highway 8 in Denton, sits Valor Memorial Park. It’s a place dedicated to honoring all veterans, including those who fought in the Confederacy.

Another Confederate statue will soon be added to the park: the one that stood outside the Old Winston-Salem Court House in downtown Winston-Salem for more than a century.

Mayor Allen Joines says it’ll cost the city $27,000 to transport it.

Over the years, the statue has been vandalized several times.

In Jan. 2019, the city ordered crews to remove the monument from its spot on Fourth Street and Liberty Street and into storage where it’s been since April 2023.

The move sparked debate with the United Daughters of the Confederacy who owned and wanted to keep the statue where it is.

The argument made its way to the North Carolina Court of Appeals where judges dismissed the case. Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines says city leaders made the right decision.

“That monument was such an insult to many of our citizens who had to walk by that on the way to work or to downtown. It just represented the worst things of our country,” Joines said.

Joines says before the city agreed to move the statue to Denton, his first choice to relocate the statue was Salem Cemetery, but that idea fell through.

“I got nervous after we removed the statue originally, and there were so many protests and noises kind of made, and I didn’t want to bring that into the cemetery.”

After the city spent more than $18,000 to keep the statue in storage for five years. Joines says relocating the statue was worth it even with the mixed reactions from the public.

“Not only from our citizens but outside the city as well and outside the state as well. I got some very positive ones and some very negative ones, including some death threats. It was a very interesting time.”

According to the Valor Memorial Park website, the plan is to move it sometime this summer.