Qualla: Monument of States https://qualla.com/monument-of-states en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/n/0/monument-of-states-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Monument of States https://qualla.com/monument-of-states Monument of States: Introduction https://qualla.com/monument-of-states/ Photo credit Visitor7, Public domain. The day after Pearl Harbor, a retired doctor in Kissimmee, Florida, decided to build something. Not a weapon, not a bunker - a pile of rocks. Charles W. Bressler-Pettis, a World War I veteran who had served in both the Royal Army Medical Corps and the United States Army, was president of the local All-States Tourist Club, a social group for senior citizens who had relocated to central Florida from across the country. His response to the Japanese attack was characteristically personal and slightly eccentric: he would erect a monument containing a stone from every state in the union. One nation, bound together by geology. The result, completed in 1943 and still standing on Monument Avenue in Kissimmee, is a 100,000-pound step-pyramid crowned with an American eagle perched on a blue concrete globe - a strange, beautiful, deeply American structure that weighs as much as a locomotive and contains a piece of its creator's body.

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Image: Visitor7 | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/n/0/monument-of-states-wp/djn0-monument-of-states-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Monument of States: The Doctor's Grand Obsession https://qualla.com/monument-of-states/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bressler-Pettis was a collector by nature. He had amassed thousands of rocks during his travels, and he donated many of them to his own project. But the monument demanded more. He wrote to every governor in the country, asking each to send a representative stone from their state....

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Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/n/0/monument-of-states-wp/djn0-monument-of-states-the-doctors-grand-obsession.mp3 0:06 2 full Monument of States: Assembled by Retirees, Blessed by a President https://qualla.com/monument-of-states/ Photo credit Stjanss and mriedel, CC BY-SA 3.0. The monument was built entirely by volunteer labor, most of them elderly members of the All-States Tourist Club. Locals contributed 507 individual bags of cement. Area businesses donated materials. Everyone who helped in any capacity had their name inscribed in the adjacent sidew...

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Image: Stjanss and mriedel | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/n/0/monument-of-states-wp/djn0-monument-of-states-assembled-by-retirees-blessed-by-a-president.mp3 0:06 3 full Monument of States: The Man Inside the Monument https://qualla.com/monument-of-states/ Photo credit Visitor7, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Bressler-Pettis died in 1954, the city of Kissimmee did something remarkable: it changed its burial regulations to allow a portion of his remains to be sealed inside the monument he had created. A plaque honoring Pettis was placed on the structure, and his ashes joined the 1...

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Image: Visitor7 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/n/0/monument-of-states-wp/djn0-monument-of-states-the-man-inside-the-monument.mp3 0:06 4 full Monument of States: The Mouse That Stole the Tourists https://qualla.com/monument-of-states/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1971, Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, just twenty miles to the north. Almost overnight, the flow of tourists through Kissimmee changed. Visitors no longer drifted through town looking for diversions - they drove straight to the theme parks. The Monument of States, which h...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/n/0/monument-of-states-wp/djn0-monument-of-states-the-mouse-that-stole-the-tourists.mp3 0:06 5 full Monument of States: Stones That Still Hold https://qualla.com/monument-of-states/ Photo credit Michael Lowin (Mlowin), CC BY-SA 2.0 de. The Monument of States was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 2015 - seventy-two years after its dedication, and nearly the exact anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack that inspired it. The timing feels deliberate. Today the monument stands in a sma...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/n/0/monument-of-states-wp/djn0-monument-of-states-stones-that-still-hold.mp3 0:06 6 full