Sitka's citizens raised the idea of adding another resource to the monument in 1933. Elbridge Warren Merrill, the first albeit unofficial custodian of the monument, had become ill with influenza late in 1929. This turned into pneumonia which caused Merrill's death on October 27, 1929. The Sitka post of the American Legion raised money for a commemorative plaque that read:

Elbridge W. Merrill who dedicated his life and artistic attainments towards picturing the scenic beauties surrounding Sitka, Alaska, 1932.

According to Eiler Hansen, who wrote as adjutant of the Sitka post to the National Park Service in 1933, the plaque was to be mounted on a natural granite monolith about 14 feet in height. Hansen asked permission to erect the plaque and its monolith within the monument. [182] The answer was no. Cammerer replied for Albright: "Mr. Merrill never entered on duty as custodian of the monument . . . I regret that it would be against the policy of the National Park Service to permit its erection within the Sitka National Monument, even had he been officially connected with it." Cammerer asked if the memorial plaque could be placed on the approach to the monument outside it boundaries. It was placed outside the boundaries, where it remained into the 1980s

View more history for Post 13 in Sitka, Alaska