Eternal Light Peace Memorial The Eternal Light Peace Memorial is a 1938 Gettysburg Battlefield monument commemorating the 1913 Gettysburg reunion for the fiftieth anniversary of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg . The natural gas flame in a one ton bronze urn is atop a tower on a stone pedestrian terrace with views from the terraced hill summit over about , and the flame is visible from away . History . In 1887 , " the Philadelphia Brigade , Col . Cowan and others " advocated a " grand monument to American Heroism on this battlefield " , and President William McKinley spoke to Cowan about North / South peace in 1900 . The " first tentative programme " of October 1910 for the 1913 Gettysburg reunion planned a " Peace Jubilee " to be held on " National Day " with an oration by President Woodrow Wilson and the cornerstone placement for the " Great Peace Memorial " at noon . However , after being " presented , January 11th , 1912 , to the Joint Committee of the Congress [ for ] the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg " , funding was " found , in March 1912 , impossible of accomplishment in the 62nd Congress " . Instead of the laying of a cornerstone , on July 3 during the New York Veterans ' Celebration in the 1913 Great Tent , Colonel Andrew Cowan gave a speech advocating the memorial , and " steps to accomplish such purpose were immediately taken … which resulted in the Gettysburg Peace Memorial Association being formed . … That Association ' s Bill was , on December 20th , 1913 , presented to Congress … creating the Gettysburg Memorial Commission . " The original plan was for a $ 250 , 000 " monument of peace " at The Angle , but despite 1914 " Peace Memorial Bill " presentations to the US House of Representatives that compared the planned memorial with Christ the Redeemer of the Andes and the Lincoln Memorial , federal funding remained " postponed " . In August 1936 , the memorial ' s commission issued 10 , 000 four page circulars to publicize the plan , and Virginia in 1936 was the first to appropriate funds . In 1937 the Pennsylvania legislature began planning a peace memorial on Big Round Top , and the state ' s " Peace Memorial Bill " was signed on February 24 , 1937 , to appropriate $ 5 , 000 for the state ' s " Gettysburg Peace Memorial fund " . The peace memorial committee selected from the 6 designs by August 1937 and on December 10 , 1937 , Lee Lawrie was announced as the sculptor for the structure " " overlooking " Big Round Top [ and ] Little Round Top " . With additional funding by New York , Indiana , Tennessee , Illinois , and Wisconsin ; the $ 60 , 000 monument was instead completed northwest of Gettysburg , Pennsylvania . Groundbreaking was on February 14 , and the last foot of piping for the flame ' s gas supply was placed on May 31 . Dedication . Attendance for the memorial ' s dedication at the 1938 Gettysburg reunion was 250 , 000 ; a further 100 , 000 attempted to attend but failed to arrive due to congested roads . President Franklin D . Roosevelt arrived at a temporary platform on his special train via the Reading Railroad from the North after leaving Springwood at Hyde Park NY that morning . The U . S . 3d Cavalry Division escorted the President ' s motorcade to the memorial on Oak Hill , and Roosevelt ' s open car arrived with a 21 gun salute . Roosevelt used " a new Mobile sound system unit " to address the audience including the veterans on specially - constructed grandstands under a canopy . As his nine minute speech ended at sunset , the Peace Memorial covered by a 50 foot flag was unveiled by George N . Lockwood and Confederate A . G . Harris ( both age 91 ) with two regular army attendants a photocell automatically lit the flame Grand Army of the Republic chaplain Martin V . Stone ended the ceremony with a benediction prayer , and on the way to his car Roosevelt spoke with the oldest attending veteran , William Barnes of the US Colored Troops , age 112 . A Sixth Field Artillery battery near Oak Hill fired a 21 gun salute as the President departed at 7 p . m . ( his train to Washington used the Western Maryland Railroad . The flame was reduced to a pilot light during World War II ( from December 25 , 1941 ) and just prior to the 1946 Paris peace conference , President Truman commented about the inscribed motto , " Peace Eternal in a Nation United " : " That is what we want , but let ' s change that word ( nation ) to world and we ' ll have something . " The deteriorated Alabama limestone in the lower section that had been approved for use by the Bureau of Standards was replaced with gray granite in June 1941 , and repairs were also made in 1950 . A 1962 protest against nuclear arms and testing was held at the memorial , and the flame was extinguished in 1974 for the oil crisis after the 93rd United States Congress prohibited such flames ( except for the John F . Kennedy Eternal Flame ) , and the extinguished gas flame was replaced by an electrical light in 1976 . A Gettysburg Peace Celebration Committee had been formed by June 1988 , and the gas flame was restored at their Fiftieth Anniversary Rededication on July 3 .