McKinley Memorial: Statue and Museum
Niles, Ohio
President William McKinley had been dead for over 16 years when this memorial and museum opened on October 5, 1917. It was the idea of steel baron Joseph G. Butler Jr., a McKinley pal, and its original construction was partly paid for with the sale of special one-dollar gold coins.
The temple-like memorial features an open colonnade with a 12-foot-tall, 35-ton marble statue of McKinley by sculptor J. Massey Rind. It's surrounded by a "Court of Honor" of bronze busts of other powerful men of 1917, including former Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and future President Warren Harding.
Most of McKinley's presidential mementos were gone by the time this museum opened, but it does display his office chair, his piano, one of his desks, and the McKinley horse-drawn sleigh -- occupied by costumed dummies of the President and First Lady.