Back inwards 1941 , later Japan’s sneak assail on Pearl Harbor , a retired doctor too president of a local tourist guild , Charles W. Bressler-Pettis , devised an consider to erect a unique monument inwards Kissimmee , Florida , that he hoped would inspire American solidarity inwards reply to the attack. He wrote to the governors of each state too requested them to post him local rocks. Soon rocks of every cast , size too type began to arrive. There were native granite , quartz , pocket-sized boulders , fossils , too pieces of one-time buildings. These were collected yesteryear local authorities too civic organizations , equally good equally expanse businesses too private residents. President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself donated a stone from his estate inwards New York. Pettis likewise added is ain collection of rocks from his prior travels all over the United States.
As a trial of Pettis’s endeavour , a towering step-pyramid weighing an estimated 50 tons was erected inwards Kissimmee inwards 1943. At the overstep sits an American eagle too a flag of the U.S. , resting on a bluish concrete orb.
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Pettis continued to have donations from all over the basis , fifty-fifty subsequent to his boot the bucket inwards 1954. Volunteers added the newer rocks to the surrounding walkways.
The Monument of States remained a pop tourist attraction until the opening of Walt Disney World inwards Orlando inwards 1971. After that visitors to this strange roadside attraction brutal drastically too the monument brutal into neglect.
In 2001 , an car association too a hotel chain gave the monument a facelift , consummate amongst a novel flag too a fresh coat of pigment on around of the slabs. In 2015 , the monument was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
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Photo credit: quite peculiar/Flickr
Photo credit: Walter/Flickr
Source: Wikipedia / Roadside America / NPS