City of Presidents

In the heart of Rapid City, South Dakota, a bold idea took root in 1999, sparked by a local businessman with a passion for community. He was a hard person to have as your father. He was driven and then we worked together too, so a father-son relationship at work is difficult, but at the same time we made it work for a great number of years. He had a habit of just showing up at your studio. He'd tell you what he was thinking, that's for damn sure. Don Perdue, a carpenter turned furniture maker who moved to Rapid City for its small business spirit, noticed visitors flocking to a temporary statue of Abraham Lincoln outside the Alex Johnson Hotel. Don said, you know Nancy, I come by here and I see people sitting on that seat at Lincoln all the time. And he said, wouldn't it be great if we could have bronze statues of all the presidents on every corner in downtown Rapid City. There's nothing he couldn't do and all you had to do is tell him you can't and then he digs in his heels. Don, alongside board members Dallery Davis, Steve Rollinger and Nancy Engler, set out to make this dream a reality. In 1999, Dallery Davis and I were at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Rapid City. We were introduced to Don Perdue and Dallery and Don started talking about this crazy idea to put presidents on the street corners and Dallery said, I have the artists, if you've got the money, let's make this happen. Never would have dreamt that my next 10 years of my life would be consumed with doing life-size presidents. He said these things are going to cost in excess of $50,000 once we get going. I refuse to take any federal, state or city money because this is all going to be funded by people. I thought he was just nuts for doing this. You know, nobody wanted to donate to these statues. Everyone thought, well, we're going to get two or three statues up and then the project's going to end and he would make doctor's appointments for false reasons just to get in front of people with some money and sell the project to him and try to get donations. He had his mindset on things and he would not compromise. Same way with Dallery because she was as protective of her artists as Don was of the project. She would go to the board and fight for what was best for the project. We weren't just in there on our own. Dallery really helped us fight some of those battles and I appreciate that. She treated us all like sons, you know. It's one of those people you're never going to be able to thank him properly, you know. The project wasn't without challenges. Some criticized it as political, but the board stayed united, keeping politics out and focusing on history and art. The city council led by Mayor Jim Shaw unanimously supported the vision, seeing its potential to bring visitors to Rapid City's downtown. What did you just say it was? Smooth sailing. In your dreams. Now the first four presidents, oh my gracious, the city was up in arms. There were so many articles in the paper. They called John Adams the gnome. Then they said they got this cowboy and I don't know what he's all about, which was Reagan. The naysayers, oh you're never going to get, that's never going to happen. You're never going to be able to get all those funded. That's all we heard. We knew just keep going, keep going straight ahead. By 2000, the first four statues, George Washington, John Adams, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush stood proudly marking the start of a project that would transform Rapid City into the city of presidents. There was an order that they were going to take the two most recent presidents and the two oldest presidents, so we'd take two from each end and work towards the center, so we couldn't just pick and choose. Creating a city of presidents statue is a meticulous, collaborative process. Each statue begins with an artist's vision, carefully researched to capture a president's essence, not just their presidency, but their humanity. They wanted us to be artists and come up with something that was good. And we thought the last thing we want is dozens of lawyers in a suit making a speech. We started talking more and more about giving them some personality. You're looking to understand the person, so I've always wanted to bring their personality out in the pieces that I do. The way that the ideas for the presidents were developed was we had to make a moquette and submit that to the board and to the other artists for approval. You know, got used to their critiques and it just started smoothing out after a while. I always told people that each president we did was like a graduate study program and you passed and then you were on to the next one and the next one. Well, I remember once we had to do a concept drawing of the pose we wanted to do for the committee and I don't know, I got, maybe I got kind of bored doing the drawing and I put six fingers on one of them. Valerie got a big kick out of that. Once approved, the clay was cast in bronze, gifted to the city, and unveiled in a public ceremony before taking its place on a downtown corner. The board's goal was accessibility. Statues stood at street level, not on pedestals, inviting visitors to engage directly. You notice you go down there, there's nothing chained off around it. We wanted people to be able to touch it, feel it, put their arm around it, take pictures of it. We wanted it to be an experience. That's exactly what we wanted and that's exactly what we got. He's sitting in a chair with his two food dogs and he's doing his famous brooding thing, because I know he's a brooder, so he's trying to just look for visual cues to do some storytelling there as well. Taft is the one doing the wind-up. He was a great athlete. He was the biggest, fattest guy, but when he was a younger man, he was a heavyweight champion wrestler at Yale and he got drafted to play pro baseball. So you know when he threw out a pitch, he was gonna throw the heater and he's calling off the catcher's call, you know, he's giving the one eye. We had lots of fun with that. Harry Truman holding up his newspaper. That statue got knocked down by a drunk driver, but the morning after that statue was hit, the journal, Rapid City Journal, had one of their best headlines, which was Ford defeats Truman. I thought somebody should get an award for that one. Lincoln, reading about him, I knew how much his children meant to him. I knew how much the war weighed on his shoulders. He's reading these telegrams from the front lines and he's seeing the reports of all these lives lost on both sides. His son, Tad, is playing at his feet. I always get kind of choked up about that. The idea that this person is having to balance the responsibilities of the Civil War, having these reports of death, and at the same time maintain a relationship with his family and to be a father. I just think that statue is beautiful. From concept to completion, each statue took about a year, with four unveiled annually until the project caught up to the present day. This labor of love turned Rapid City streets into an open-air gallery of American history. Don wanted the visitor center to be themed like the presidents themselves. He had the presidential seal put into a special carpeting in the middle of the room, and then that's where he had special displays. Then he had a couple showcases, and that's where these maquettes were displayed so people could see every step of the way. The City of Presidents is more than a collection of statues. It's a living experience, shaped by talented South Dakota artists. Their work brings presidents to life. Families hunt for hidden elements through the City of Presidents scavenger hunt. When a president passes, it's common for citizens and visitors to leave tributes, flowers, balloons, even jelly beans for Ronald Reagan. Watching people interact with the presidents, I had my gallery here downtown for many years, and I was able to see the tourists walking around, and it was nice to know that people really did enjoy them, and everybody would high-five Jimmy Carter over there, and people would take their pictures with them. And Don Perdue's original concept was that he felt that if you had a coherent series of sculptures on one subject, it would motivate tourists to walk around downtown, hopefully going into stores and restaurants, and he was very interested in trying to keep downtown Rapid City alive. After we put the first four sculptures up, you could see that people were starting to interact with the sculptures. If it was really cold, people would put coats on them for the homeless people, and so the public started interacting with the sculptures right away, and that was really a good sign that it was going to become a part of the culture in Rapid City. From C-SPAN coverage to USA Today recognition, the City of Presidents has drawn people worldwide, proving Rapid City is more than a stopover, it's a destination. For me, I think my proudest moment was when I had 100% City Council came and supported me with it, so I felt like I had done my part in the project. USA Today did a survey about tourism, and we went out over everybody. We had growing pains, and it was tough, but we kept along and kept along. Then people couldn't wait until we had the unveilings to see what the new presidents were. But that's how we evolved, and of course now our project has gone to people who will continue to take care of it and serve it well. In 2024, Visit Rapid City took the reins of the City of Presidents. They launched an interactive audio tour, accessed via QR codes or a dial-in number, bringing presidents' stories directly to visitors. In 2024 alone, nearly 4,000 people have listened to the audio tour, a testament of the project's enduring appeal. Oh, I think Visit Rapid City, it's just a fantastic relationship, and it promotes the statues, promotes the vision that my dad had. The City of Presidents remains a gift to Rapid City, a celebration of history, art, and community. As new presidents are added and visitors continue to explore, Don Perdue's dreams live on, ensuring downtown Rapid City thrives as a place where stories walk among us. There was hardly any sculpture here. It just springboarded a rash of sculptures everywhere in the state. I don't think City of Presidents would have gotten done without Don Perdue. He's pretty much the one that made it happen, but I have to give Dallery and the board members, but mainly Dallery, a lot of credit for staying with that project for many years and for working with Don. I can say that the Alex Johnson and the City of Presidents, I've had other honors. I've had presidential honors and all these other things. Nothing compared to this. I just didn't have the passion for it like I do for this. I was like a lot of the community. It wasn't until probably the third season that I became a believer in it too. I mean, then that's when it started having momentum, and you can't help but being downtown and watching people interact with those statues with a certain sense of family pride. I think of the things my father did, this is the one that was most dear to him.