Cenotaph Square (Indianapolis, Indiana) | war memorial

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Cenotaph Square is located between the two auxiliary buildings used by the American Legion. It is in a sunken garden with the rectangular black granite cenotaph centered in it resting upon a base of red and dark green granite. Four shafts of black granite, with gold eagles surmounted on them, mark the corners of the square.

The inscription on the north face of the cenotaph memorializes James Bethal Gresham, a Hoosier who was the first member of the American Expeditionary Force to be killed in action in World War I. An Evansville, Indiana native, he was a corporal in the 16th Infantry Regiment and was killed at Bathelemont, France on November 3, 1917. The inscription on the south side says: "A tribute by Indiana to the hallowed memory of the glorious dead who served in the World War."