Wobbly Willie's House
I'm in Canton, Ohio where this morning I paid a visit to the final resting place of William and Ida McKinley. The McKinley Monument is quite impressive and laid out on a hill overlooking a beautiful view. It's next to a cemetery, and on a hill where McKinley had wanted to build a monument to some of the soldiers from his county who had fought and died in the Civil War. Instead the hill is home to a monument for he and Mrs. McKinley. It took about 6 years to construct and shortly before its completion, first lady Ida McKinley passed away. The two now rest in piece in twin "sarcophagi" inside the monument.
There are 108 steps to the monument. While I was there, a lot of people were using the steps to exercise. People of all shapes and sizes ran up and down the steps. I had already done my morning run, and I found climbing up them once to be a nice little workout.
At the foot of the hill is the McKinley Museum. I was a little disappointed in that it's really the Stark County Museum, and while McKinley is the centerpiece of the museum, it's not entirely his museum.
I snapped some pics in order that you can vicariously visit the McKinley Monument and Museum with me. They await behind the cut.
1-2. The 108 steps and some of the fit-minded individuals using them as their own personal stairmaster.
3-4. The statue of President McKinley halfway up the stairs, along with a close up of its inscription.
5. The inscription above the entrance to the monument.
6. The sarcophagi of President and Mrs. McKinley.
7-8. In front of the McKinleys is this display, from the Masons. Apparently McKinley was a Mason, and is referred to as "Brother William" in the display.
9. The view from the top.
10. The museum is to the left of the entrance to the monument. It's also a museum for Stark County, although to be fair, I understand that the county is paying for the museum, not the national archives.
11. This bust of McKinley is in front of the museum.
12. A display highlighting Stark county's civil war vets, including a young William McKinley. McKinley was a Sergeant in charge of feeding the soldiers. He twice disobeyed orders at the Battle of Antietam by driving a wagon under fire to get food to wounded soldiers. His heroism got him a promotion and he eventually rose to the rank of Major. According to biographer Kevin Phillips, even as President, McKinley still liked to be addressed as Major.
13-14. A couple of the displays in the museum, one about the 1896 election against a young William Jennings Bryan, and one about the Spanish-American War.
15-16. McKinley ran what is known as the "front porch campaign." Apparently it was still thought to be unseemly for a presidential candidate to go out and campaign, so McKinley would speak from his front porch and thousands of people would come to hear him. Pictured below are a giant flag that McKinley used as a backdrop to those speeches, and a rocking chair that he sat in to give some of those speeches.
17-18. These are a couple of McKinley's campaign posters. The second is from the election of 1901 when he ran with Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate.
19. This is McKinley's desk that he used in the White House. There's an interesting story about the red carnations that he always kept in his office. Apparently just minutes before he was shot, a little girl shook his hand in the receiving line and McKinley took out the carnation from his lapel and gave it to her as a souvenir. Some superstitious pundits say that this was bad luck. After McKinley's assassination, the state of Ohio adopted the scarlet carnation as its state flower.
20. Okay this was kind of creepy. These William and Ida McKinley talking plastic figures are activated by sensors and they start talking to people who walk into the room. (The LBJ museum has something like this too, but just of LBJ.) The McKinleys offered me coffee but didn't deliver.
21. Here's a revolver identical to the one that Leon Czolgosz used to assassinate McKinley in Buffalo at the World's Fair. I wish they had displayed the original.
22. One last look up at the monument from the front of the museum before I head off to my next destination in Canton: the NFL Hall of Fame.
On the plane ride down here I read Kevin Phillips' book about McKinley from the American Presidents Series. Overall I've very impressed with McKinley as a President and from all I've learned about him he's definitely gone up in my estimation.
I wish I hadn't packed so much into such a short tour. So far I've seen both the McKinley Monument and Museum and the NFL Hall of Fame. In less than an hour I plan to drive to Pittsburgh to see a Pirates game, and tomorrow I plan to spend the day in Akron on another one of my interests (possibly capped off with a Cleveland Indians game). Hey, you only live once, right? I hope you've enjoyed this vicarious visit.
There are 108 steps to the monument. While I was there, a lot of people were using the steps to exercise. People of all shapes and sizes ran up and down the steps. I had already done my morning run, and I found climbing up them once to be a nice little workout.
At the foot of the hill is the McKinley Museum. I was a little disappointed in that it's really the Stark County Museum, and while McKinley is the centerpiece of the museum, it's not entirely his museum.
I snapped some pics in order that you can vicariously visit the McKinley Monument and Museum with me. They await behind the cut.
1-2. The 108 steps and some of the fit-minded individuals using them as their own personal stairmaster.
3-4. The statue of President McKinley halfway up the stairs, along with a close up of its inscription.
5. The inscription above the entrance to the monument.
6. The sarcophagi of President and Mrs. McKinley.
7-8. In front of the McKinleys is this display, from the Masons. Apparently McKinley was a Mason, and is referred to as "Brother William" in the display.
9. The view from the top.
10. The museum is to the left of the entrance to the monument. It's also a museum for Stark County, although to be fair, I understand that the county is paying for the museum, not the national archives.
11. This bust of McKinley is in front of the museum.
12. A display highlighting Stark county's civil war vets, including a young William McKinley. McKinley was a Sergeant in charge of feeding the soldiers. He twice disobeyed orders at the Battle of Antietam by driving a wagon under fire to get food to wounded soldiers. His heroism got him a promotion and he eventually rose to the rank of Major. According to biographer Kevin Phillips, even as President, McKinley still liked to be addressed as Major.
13-14. A couple of the displays in the museum, one about the 1896 election against a young William Jennings Bryan, and one about the Spanish-American War.
15-16. McKinley ran what is known as the "front porch campaign." Apparently it was still thought to be unseemly for a presidential candidate to go out and campaign, so McKinley would speak from his front porch and thousands of people would come to hear him. Pictured below are a giant flag that McKinley used as a backdrop to those speeches, and a rocking chair that he sat in to give some of those speeches.
17-18. These are a couple of McKinley's campaign posters. The second is from the election of 1901 when he ran with Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate.
19. This is McKinley's desk that he used in the White House. There's an interesting story about the red carnations that he always kept in his office. Apparently just minutes before he was shot, a little girl shook his hand in the receiving line and McKinley took out the carnation from his lapel and gave it to her as a souvenir. Some superstitious pundits say that this was bad luck. After McKinley's assassination, the state of Ohio adopted the scarlet carnation as its state flower.
20. Okay this was kind of creepy. These William and Ida McKinley talking plastic figures are activated by sensors and they start talking to people who walk into the room. (The LBJ museum has something like this too, but just of LBJ.) The McKinleys offered me coffee but didn't deliver.
21. Here's a revolver identical to the one that Leon Czolgosz used to assassinate McKinley in Buffalo at the World's Fair. I wish they had displayed the original.
22. One last look up at the monument from the front of the museum before I head off to my next destination in Canton: the NFL Hall of Fame.
On the plane ride down here I read Kevin Phillips' book about McKinley from the American Presidents Series. Overall I've very impressed with McKinley as a President and from all I've learned about him he's definitely gone up in my estimation.
I wish I hadn't packed so much into such a short tour. So far I've seen both the McKinley Monument and Museum and the NFL Hall of Fame. In less than an hour I plan to drive to Pittsburgh to see a Pirates game, and tomorrow I plan to spend the day in Akron on another one of my interests (possibly capped off with a Cleveland Indians game). Hey, you only live once, right? I hope you've enjoyed this vicarious visit.