American Legion Mall

American Legion Mall comprises two city blocks and is the largest part of a five-city-block plaza, with the actual mall at the north end of the plaza. Its overall design reflects the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and the City Beautiful Movement, a popular design trend in the 1920s. The American Legion was the catalyst for the Indiana War Memorial Plaza, and the history of the plaza is closely connected to the history of the American Legion. The search for the national headquarters location led to the creation of this plaza as one of the greatest national tributes to veterans. The same tools General John Pershing used in laying the original Indiana War Memorial cornerstone in 1927 were used again in a similar ceremony on May 6, 1949, for the enlarged American Legion Headquarters. A time capsule placed inside contains a current edition of the Indianapolis Star, other city newspapers, facsimiles of several historic documents, and a history of the War Memorial itself. Throughout the 1990s, three monuments were added to honor Indiana veterans of World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The Sunken Garden with the Cenotaph, situated between the State and National American Legion Headquarters Building, was dedicated on Armistice Day, November 11, 1932. The cenotaph honors the dead whose remains lie elsewhere, and its north side bears a memorial to Jame Bethal Gresham of Evansville, Indiana, the first member of the American Expeditionary Force to lose his life in the World War. Made of black granite on a red and dark green granite base, it bears an inscription mounted inside a bronze wreath with a gold star. The Sunken Garden lies lower than Saint Clair Street but higher than the mall, and at the four corners of the cenotaph stand black granite columns capped by golden eagles, while bronze wreaths with central stars appear on the east, west, and south sides of the platform.

Indianapolis city (balance), Indiana · United States