File:Theodore Roosevelt Gate - interior looking N - Arlington National Cemetery - 2011.JPG

English: Inside the main gates at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, in the United States. This image is looking north at the rear of the Theodore Roosevelt Gate, which is the southern of the two ceremonial gates at the entrance to the cemetery.

The gates were constructed in 1932 as part of the construction of the Hemicycle (now the Women in Military Service to America Memorial) and Memorial Drive, which linked Arlington's new main gate to the Arlington Memorial Bridge and the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Arlington had expanded toward the Potomac River, making the old McClellan Gate unuseable as an entrance as it was now deep inside the cemetery. Each gate is consists of four granite pillars trending southwest-to-northeast. The southwesternmost pillar connects with the retaining wall that forms the Hemicycle. The gate itself is between the second and third pillars, while black wrought iron fences connect the outermost pillars to the innermost ones. A fifth pillar is set inward toward Memorial Drive from the northwesternmost pillar, and is connected to the fourth pillar by a black wrought iron fence. The two innermost pillars are topped by granite eagles, while the other three are topped by funeral urns.

The two innermost pillars (topped by eagles) and the Roosevelt Gate are depicted here, open for the public. Gold gilded lamps top the hinge of each gate. On each gate, front and back, are two gold wreaths 30 inches (76 cm) in diameter. Each wreath cradles the shield of one of the armed services that existed in 1932. On the Roosevelt Gate, these are the United States Marine Corps and United States Army. (The United States Air Force did not exist until 1947.) Each gate is divided into 13 sections by wrought iron fasces, and above six of the sections are iron spikes topped by gold stars.