Arnprior had a wooden pillar without any inscribed names, which was considered as a town memorial. An editorial for the Arnprior Chronicle on 29 November 1951, by B.V. Bedore echoed wider public sentiment when he called for the construction of a public memorial. Soon after, the Arnprior Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion formed the Cenotaph Committee.
Made up of several Veterans of both the First and Second World Wars, the Cenotaph Committee was chaired by J.J. Greene, with the support of Mayor Robert Simpson, regional Women's Institutes and local residents. The committee collected the names to be inscribed on the memorial, necessary funding, and secured a location for construction.
The Arnprior Cenotaph was installed by Remembrance Day ceremonies on 11 November 1952 and officially dedicated in July 1953 by the Honourable Brooke Claxton, then Minister of National Defence. It honours those who fought and died during the First and Second World Wars and Korean War. At this time, the name of Desmond Trudeau, who died in the Korean War in 1953, was added to the cenotaph.
By the late 1990s, the cenotaph was in need of restoration. The Arnprior Legion formed a committee to fix a large crack in the base and to have installed a new granite slab over the deteriorated limestone face. It was restored in 1998. With assistance from volunteers of the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives, several new names were added and others corrected from the original inscription.
