American Presidents of Rapid City SD

After a delightful excursion to Bear Country USA, we continued on our way to see the American Presidents of Rapid City SD.

Rapid City is known as the City of Presidents for a very good reason. The downtown area between 4th and 9th streets, at the corners of Saint Joseph and Main streets are peppered with 43 life sized bronze statues of our American Presidents so far.

Steve and I drove from street corner to street corner trying to see all of the presidents. But after a while we kind of lost track of which corners we had already been to and never got to see all of them. Touring the City of Presidents in downtown Rapid City was a fun lesson in the history of our amazing country.

At each intersection we were greeted by life size bronze statues four American Presidents. It was certainly a fun and free experience on a glorious day filled with sunshine and art.

If you are planning a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota, Rapid City is only about 35 miles from Mount Rushmore. I found this very helpful walking tour guide that you can download here.

The City of Presidents project began in 2000. Its purpose is to honor the legacy of the American presidency. Each and every one of the sculptures is privately funded. They have a careful plan that the pattern of placement has been chosen to maintain an orderly structure as well as to eliminate any sense of favoritism or political gain.

To date, the final statue, which was unveiled in July 2019, shows the 44th President, Barack Obama, and his daughter, Sasha, as they walked onto the stage in Chicago to deliver his victory speech. This one was my personal favorite because I felt it showed President Obama as a father first.

I’ve read that the statue of our last president is finished but they are looking for a spot where it can be displayed safely.

Unfortunately these statues have been subject to vandalism and auto accidents. For example, the one of President Truman had been knocked over twice by auto accidents. The first time was in 2007, when the Truman statue was knocked down by a drunk driver in a Ford Taurus. The second time was in 2018, when a F-250 pickup truck ran a red light. Both accidents prompted the headline, Ford Defeats Truman, but Truman returned each time.

I’m sure there’s a lot more to see and do in Rapid City, but we had already been away from our little 14 year old fur baby Hershi for quite a few hours. So once we had taken a slew of presidential statue photos, we headed back to Ladybug in Keystone SD.