On a road trip in May of 2022, we found ourselves in Rapid City, South Dakota. We had visited Mt. Rushmore on a previous visit but had never checked out what they call the City of Presidents. This is a series of life-sized bronze statues located among the city and streets of downtown Rapid City. According to their site, The City of Presidents project began in 2000 to honor the legacy of the American presidency. Each sculpture is privately funded, and the pattern of placement was chosen to maintain an orderly structure and eliminate any sense of favoritism or political gain. The City of Presidents is part of the Rapid City Historic District Tour. This is the final post of a 5 part series on these amazing statues and includes US Presidential Statues 1969-2017. I hope you enjoy the series as much as I enjoyed learning a lot about our former Presidents while doing research.
US Presidential Statues 1969-2017 include former presidents:
- Richard Nixon
- Gerald Ford
- Jimmy Carter
- Ronald Reagan
- George H. W. Bush
- Bill Clinton
- George W. Bush
- Barack Obama
Richard Nixon
Thirty-Seventh President
Date of Birth – January 9, 1913
Birthplace – Yorba Linda, California
Education – Whittier College (1934); Duke University Law School (1937)
Career – Lawyer, Public Official
Political Party – Republican
Nickname –
Date of Inauguration – January 20, 1969
Date Ended – August 9, 1974
Date of Death – December 26, 2006
Burial Place – Yorba Linda, California
Quote – “Defeat doesn’t finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.”
Gerald R. Ford
Thirty-Eighth President
Date of Birth – July 14, 1913
Birthplace – Omaha, Nebraska
Education – University of Michigan (1935); Yale University Law School (1941)
Career – Lawyer, Public Official
Political Party – Republican
Nickname – “Jerry”
Date of Inauguration – August 9, 1974
Date Ended – January 20, 1977
Date of Death – December 26, 2006
Burial Place – Grand Rapids, Michigan
Quote – “History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.”
Jimmy Carter
Thirty-Ninth President
Date of Birth – October 1, 1924
Birthplace – Plains, Georgia
Education – Georgia Southwestern College, 1941–1942; Georgia Institute of Technology, 1942–1943; United States Naval Academy, 1943–1946 (class of 1947); Union College, 1952–1953
Career – Soldier; Farmer, Warehouseman, Public Official, Professor
Political Party – Democrat
Nickname –
Date of Inauguration – January 20, 1977
Date Ended – January 20, 1981
Date of Death –
Burial Place –
Quote – “We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”
Ronald Reagan
Fortieth President
Date of Birth – February 6, 1911
Birthplace – Tampico, Illinois
Education – Eureka College (1932)
Career – Actor, Public Official
Political Party – Republican
Nickname – “Dutch,” “The Gipper,” “The Great Communicator”
Date of Inauguration – January 20, 1981
Date Ended – January 20, 1989
Date of Death – June 5, 2004
Burial Place – Simi Valley, California
Quote – “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
George H. W. Bush
Forty-First President
Date of Birth – June 12, 1924
Birthplace – Milton, Massachusetts
Education – Yale University, 1948
Career – Businessman, public official
Political Party – Republican
Nickname – “Poppy,” “Bush 41”
Date of Inauguration – January 20, 1989
Date Ended – January 20, 1993
Date of Death – November 30, 2018
Burial Place – College Station, Texas
Quote – “America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.”
Bill Clinton
Forty-Second President
Date of Birth – August 19, 1946
Birthplace – Hope, Arkansas
Education – Georgetown University (1968), attended Oxford University (1968–1970), Yale Law School (1973)
Career – Lawyer, public official
Political Party – Democrat
Nickname – “Comeback Kid”
Date of Inauguration – January 20, 1993
Date Ended – January 20, 2001
Date of Death –
Burial Place –
Quote – “If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person. It’s how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.”
George W. Bush
Forty-Third President
Date of Birth – July 6, 1946
Birthplace – New Haven, Connecticut
Education – Yale (B.S., 1968), Harvard (M.B.A., 1975)
Career – Businessman, public official
Political Party – Republican
Nickname – “Dubya”
Date of Inauguration – January 20, 2001
Date Ended – January 20, 2009
Date of Death –
Burial Place –
Quote – “Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.”
Barack Obama
Forty-Fourth President
Date of Birth – August 4, 1961
Birthplace – Honolulu, Hawaii*
Education – Columbia University (B.A., 1983), Harvard (J.D., 1991)
Career – Community Organizer, Public Official
Political Party – Democrat
Nickname – “Barry”
Date of Inauguration – January 20, 2009
Date Ended – January 20, 2017
Date of Death –
Burial Place –
Quote – “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
US Presidential Statues 1969-2017
We had a great time checking out the US Presidential Statues 1969-2017 while in Rapid City. Here is a link to a map of which presidents are included in the City of Presidents, and on which street corners they can be found. If you are in the area, it is a fun adventure. One thing to note, a server at a restaurant shared that during the winter people will put gloves, hats, scarves, etc on the statues for the homeless people to take and use. I thought that was quite kind of the people of Rapid City. Make sure to check out all the statues on my 5 part series. Below are links to my earlier posts, and which presidents are on which one.
George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Harrison
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Zachery Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B Hayes
James A. Garfield
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
Dwight Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
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Samantha, my favorite is Richard Nixon. Just the pose. He wasn’t my favorite President. Thanks for this tour– I had NO idea there were so many Presidential statues around.
These are amazing! I didn’t know there were statues of all the presidents. It’s cute that some of them have their pets with them but I love how Obama has his daughter. That’s very sweet.
HI Maria. Thank you for the msg. I was thinking the same thing. 🙂