Conceived by Dr. Charles Bressler-Pettis, the Monument of States in Kissimmee was dedicated on March 28, 1943, as a tribute to winter visitors who came to the community from each of the then 48 states. Pettis, president of the Kissimmee All-States Tourist Club, began the project in the fall of 1941 with support from local businesses and residents, who donated more than 500 bags of cement, while the City of Kissimmee provided the site, club members supplied volunteer labor, and rocks were brought from across the country and abroad. Built as an irregular quadrilateral step-pyramid of 21 varying tiers, with a 16-foot bottom tier and a top tier 2 1/2 feet square, the structure weighed 600,000 pounds and, when completed, contained 1,500 stones from the 48 states and 21 countries, including stones Pettis collected during his travels and one contributed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from his Hyde Park estate on the Hudson. The monument has a base 22 feet square and stands 50 feet tall, topped by a solid concrete American bald eagle weighing 562 pounds with a 6-foot wingspan perched on a 3-foot concrete sphere poured in place. After Pettis died in May 1954, the City Commissioners passed an ordinance permitting his remains to be buried in the monument, but although Mrs. Pettis greatly appreciated the gesture, she chose to have him interred in his hometown of Grant, Missouri. The Monument of States was entered into the National Historic Register on October 23, 2015.