Tourist Office
St. Jude Elementary
Indianapolis

SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MONUMENT   The Soldiers and Sailors Monument is 284'6" tall (15' shorter than the Statue of Liberty), with 32 flights of stairs plus 330 steps to get to the observation deck. It is made of oolitic limestone from Stinesville, Indiana. It cost $598,318 to build in 1902. Then it cost $11.2 million to restore. Originally planned as a Civil War monument at the suggestion of Civil War Governor Oliver P. Morton in 1867, the cornerstone was laid in 1889 and the superstructure was finished in 1892. The Civil War Museum in the lower level opened in 1918.

Beginning in 1962, the monument is decorated as the world's largest Christmas tree. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument is located at the center of Indianapolis on Monument Circle. This 284 foot limestone monument was dedicated in 1902 and has majestically stood as a tribute to the past and an inspiration for the future. Visitors can experience the Civil War from the battlefield to the homefront. There are artifacts such as letters, personal diaries written by Hoosiers, cannons, uniforms, and a piece of the Maine. More that 24,000 Hoosiers gave their lives to preserve the Union. Although Indiana was geographically a border state, 74.3 percent of all eligible men served in the Union army, a percentage higher than every state except Delaware.

In 1862, long before the Civil War ended, a letter to the editor in the Indianapolis Daily Journal suggested that the state should "erect a monument … to the memory of all the dead of Indiana who have fallen in defense of the Union." Forty years passed between that suggestion and the dedication of the monument in 1902. Recognized as one of the world's outstanding monuments, the structure has become the symbol of both Indiana and Indianapolis, and we are proud to say that we have a memorial monument for those lives lost in the wars that were fought for freedom..