American Legion Mall

American Legion Mall comprises two city blocks and is the largest part of the five-city-block plaza at the north end of this section of the larger 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 search for its national headquarters led to the creation of this plaza as a major national tribute to veterans. The same tools General John Pershing used to lay 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, when a time capsule was placed inside with a current edition of the Indianapolis Star, other city newspapers, facsimiles of several historic documents, and a history of the War Memorial. Throughout the 1990s, three monuments were added to honor Indiana veterans of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Designed by Indianapolis architect Patrick Brunner, the Korean and Vietnam Wars Memorial was added to the mall and dedicated at the Indianapolis 500 Festival Memorial Service on May 24, 1996. Situated at the south end of the mall, with the Vietnam War portion to the southwest and the Korean War portion to the southeast, it is a segmented twelve-and-a-half-foot-diameter, twenty-five-foot-tall limestone and granite cylinder. Students of Lake Central High School in St. John, Indiana, provided research used to assemble the veteran names and excerpts of letters on display, and the Vietnam War segment is slightly larger than the Korean War segment to reflect the comparative number of Hoosiers killed or missing in action in each war.

Indianapolis city (balance), Indiana · United States