A Walk in the City of Presidents
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Badlands South Dakota… we’ve visited and camped in Badlands National Park in the past and if we’d had more time, we would have stopped again. It’s outstanding!
The 150-mile drive from the Lakota camp to Rapid City through the Badlands was awe-inspiringly beautiful and had we more time, we would have detoured to the national park for a few days, but we didn't. We'd been away a month and there was some personal business and medical appointments to handle back in Las Vegas, so we regretfully gave it a pass. Since we wanted to stop once again and browse at Prairie Edge, we did, however, make an overnight stop in Rapid City, South Dakota, a surprisingly modern, interesting and upbeat little city.
Known as just Rapid by the locals, it's been dubbed the City of Presidents. According to the VisitRapidCity website, the City of Presidents project, a privately funded enterprise, began in 2000 to honor the legacy of the American presidency and features a series of life-size bronze statues of US past presidents along its city streets and sidewalks. We downloaded the free walking tour then found a handy brochure in the nearby visitors center kiosk. Midst a few raindrops, we enjoyed an interesting walk through the city's historic district along Main and St. Joseph Streets. A pleasant way to get our daily 'steps' in.
The sculptors tried to capture in bronze something interesting and unique about each president. It must have been a stretch in some cases. I mean there have been good and bad presidents, but some were lame and boring. How does one capture boring in bronze? I googled 'most boring presidents' and here's a line about Chester A. Arthur from vice.com, for instance...
‘There are a lot of boring presidents, and chief among them is Chester "A" Arthur. Even this list of "interesting" Chester Arthur facts is forced to note that he was the member of a salmon club, whatever that is. One of his final recorded statements is,
“ After all, life is not worth living.”
There were several more articles on most boring presidents and I couldn’t help checking out a Time article and a CNN article to get their take. Yup, Chester Arthur made the top 10 on everyone’s list. What a legacy. But the sculptors did their jobs well although they admitted that Arthur was the last sculpture chosen by sculptors because no one could figure out anything much interesting about him.
The brochure even provided a scavenger hunt which required finding specific notable features in each sculpture.. one president held a toy plane in one hand while grasping his son's hand in another, cowboy boots and hat on another president, an army general and a Rough Rider in uniform. Most were recognizable, others not so much. See if you can identify some that we photographed. I’ve provided a few hints and you can check answers at the bottom of the post.
Promoted the US Interstate Highway system
1st president to install A/C in the White House
Co-starred with Bonzo
After our walk, we returned to Prairie Edge for some browsing and shopping, then had a way too big lunch at the popular and busy Firehouse Brewing Company. Enough for one day, we found our hotel and settled in for the evening. We were still trying to digest our vision quest experience, but this was an interesting side diversion.
Next time, we continue on our 1100+ mile ride back to Las Vegas. You know us… it's never a direct route.
So… how’d you do recognizing identifying these past US Presidents? Here are the answers in order of appearance, L-R n each row.
Lincoln, McKinley, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Garfield, Reagan, John Adams, Grant, Franklin Roosevelt, Polk, JFK, Teddy Roosevelt