Town Crier Articles

In a swampy field no more than 30 minutes’ drive away from us, stands the extraordinary sight of 43 ghostly, crumbling and huge busts of the first 43 Presidents. Measuring 18-20 feet tall, these crumbling effigies are impressive and I can only describe them a mixture of Mount Rushmore meets Easter Island meets garden maze.

 

The heads were rescued from the now defunct Virginia Presidents Park, which opened in in 2004.  They were the brainchild of local landowner Everette “Haley” Newman and Houston sculptor David Adickes, who was inspired to create the giant busts after driving past Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  When the park closed in 2010, Newman asked Hankins to destroy the busts. But Hankins didn’t feel right about it, and instead offered to take the heads and move them to his 400-acre farm. And so began the process of moving 43 giant presidents, each weighing in between 11,000 and 20,000 pounds, to the field where they now reside.

 

After being damaged in the move to a recycling and reclamation farm – the busts are far from looking their best.  They are stained, are homes to birds, bees and other critters, and poor Abraham Lincoln has a hole in the back of his head, where he fell off the flatbed on his removal to the new home.  (Note: PBS had a recent radio interview with John Plashal, one of the tour guides.) 

 

Tickets are timed, to ensure safety and that the numbers are limited, but on your visit you are free to wander in between the statues as well as listen to a short talk about U.S. Presidents and the history of the statues.  We had a lot of fun scrambling in between the massive statues and wading through the mud, which was alarmingly deep in places.  The kids especially loved it (they are 3 and 6 so it was more about the mud and the maze-like feel to display, than the history), so if you can get tickets (which, we were told, are like gold dust), it is well worth a visit.