This weekend in Rapid City, South Dakota, a life-size bronze statue of President Trump was officially unveiled as part of the “City of Presidents” project, a privately-funded art initiative that places full-sized statues of every U.S. president throughout downtown Rapid City.
Trump takes his rightful place alongside Reagan, Coolidge, Taft, McKinley, Jefferson, Washington, and the rest.
The statue was designed by South Dakota sculptor James Maher, and it captures Trump mid-speech. The statue, which was completed prior to Trump’s 2024 historic election victory, will be housed in the city’s Elks Theater over the summer before being installed permanently outdoors.
“The City of Presidents is a vital part of Rapid City and a story of American history,” said Ally Formanek, interim CEO for Visit Rapid City. “We look forward to introducing the latest installment of this art project to the public.”
Local leaders were in attendance, including U.S. Congressman Dusty Johnson and Rapid City Mayor Jason Salamun, both of whom acknowledged the significance of the moment. Maher, the sculptor, called Trump “a consequential figure in American history,” and noting the care that went into the decision to include him.
The inclusion of Trump in this trail of presidential statues is controversial only because media, academia, and the Left have waged a nonstop campaign to demonize him since 2015.
The left even has an ongoing project to make grotesque and ugly short-lived statues of Trump, called the “Trump Statue Initiative.”
Despite the statue’s addition being consistent with the project’s original mission to represent every American president without political bias, leftist protesters gathered outside. Holding signs and shouting, the protestors were a small but noisy presence, desperate to remind the world that even a nonpartisan art installation cannot exist without their interference.
President Trump won a historic re-election in 2024 with a majority of the popular vote, and a resounding electoral mandate. Trump won the state of South Dakota by a 63-34 margin.
Congressman Johnson, brushing off the protests, emphasized that the City of Presidents is about unity and history, not division. “These statues are meant to honor the office and remember what each president brought to the nation. This is not about political sides,” he said.
The City of Presidents project began in the year 2000 and has placed statues of every past president throughout the city, each one funded by private donations. Unlike taxpayer-funded art installations elsewhere, this trail is built by citizens and small donors who want to preserve history and attract tourism to the state’s second-largest city.
The Trump statue was funded by donor Paul Bradsky.
Sculptor James Maher acknowledged that creating Trump’s statue was a political challenge. “There’s a lot of passion surrounding him, good and bad,” Maher said. “But he was elected president. Twice, arguably.” The crowd chuckled at the line, which drew a subtle nod to the ongoing controversies surrounding the 2020 election.
Downtown #RapidCity got a little more #MAGA today. 45/47 #Trump statue to be placed on President’s Row. @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/VAYhplX9Sm
— DeplorableHill_1776 (@Hill_1776) May 3, 2025
While many local outlets covered the event with subdued headlines, national media largely ignored it. CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times had no front-page stories on the statue’s unveiling.
Trump’s popularity in America’s heartland remains strong. And for the millions who voted for him, not once, not twice, but three times in a row, this statue is more than bronze and stone.
The statue will be on display at the Elks Theater through the summer before taking its permanent place downtown, where visitors from across the country can stand face-to-face with the man who shook Washington to its core.
Trump has personally said in March that he wants to make it a priority to restore statues and memorials to America, after years of leftists tearing down historical objects because of various historical thoughtcrimes. Leftists have torn down around 100 confederate statues, over 40 Christopher Columbus statues, as well as a Theodore Roosevelt statue.
Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly proposed the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes, a large outdoor park that would feature 250 statues of notable figures from U.S. history. Framed as a counter to the wave of monument removals across the country, Trump described the garden as a tribute to “the greatest Americans to ever live.” His executive order called for statues of a wide range of figures, from George Washington and Frederick Douglass to Amelia Earhart and Billy Graham. The idea emphasized celebrating patriotic accomplishment and historical legacy through physical monuments, though the garden was never funded or constructed. Trump has said recently that he plans to use the funding from scrapped grants from the National Endowment from the Humanities to fund these statues.
A similar effort to that in Rapid City was the Virginia Park of Presidents, more formally known as ‘Presidents Park’, which was once an outdoor sculpture park near Williamsburg, Virginia featuring 43 massive concrete busts of U.S. Presidents. Each sculpture stood about 20 feet tall, modeled with striking detail by artist David Adickes. The park opened in 2004 but closed in 2010 due to financial difficulties. Rather than being destroyed, the busts were relocated to a private farm in Croaker, Virginia, where they now sit weathered and cracked, scattered in a field with some missing chunks or bearing water damage. Though decaying, the statues have developed a cult following and have been the subject of photo essays and documentaries.
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