City of Presidents – Dakota Vacation blog post #9

 

For four days of our trip to the Dakotas in June, we stayed at an Airbnb in Rapid City. We were only about four blocks from downtown, so the morning of our first full day in town, we walked there to see why Rapid City is called the City of Presidents. 

Along a 10-block loop of downtown sidewalks, life-sized bronze statues of past US presidents stand and sit. 

In 1999, local businessman Don Perdue was inspired by a temporarily relocated statue of Abraham Lincoln outside one of the downtown hotels. Random people were taking notice of the statue, talking to Lincoln as if he were a real person. Perdue wondered if all the presidents would get such a reaction. 

With a lot of convincing, a lot of fundraising, and hours of research, the project got off the ground later that year.

The first four statues of George Washington, John Adams, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush were unveiled in 2000. 

Over the next ten years, local artists worked to create and place all 40 of the remaining statues.

And, yes, more presidents will be added as they finish their terms in office. 

I’m sorry that I couldn’t post pictures of all of them here. You’ll have to go see them for yourself.

Can you name all the ones I've shared here?