CROAKER, Va. (AP) - Like an American version of Easter Island, the giant busts of every U.S. president through George W. Bush loom in a James City County field.
The 42 statues (Grover Cleveland was elected to two nonconsecutive terms, making him the 22nd and 24th president) are the remnants of Presidents Park, a failed tourist attraction that closed in 2010 because of a lack of visitors.
Some of the presidential busts are in better shape than others.
Abraham Lincoln has a large hole in the back of his head. Woodrow Wilson’s face is falling apart. Most of the statues are pockmarked and stained from years of exposure to the elements on contractor Howard Hankins’ farm just off Interstate 64 in Croaker, an unincorporated area of James City County about 40 miles east of Richmond.
Now, Hankins has plans to give the aging busts new life in the form of a museum - an effort that could be aided by some unexpected recent publicity.
The busts, which are 18 to 20 feet tall, are made of about 7,500 pounds of reinforced steel and concrete.
Hankins helped build Presidents Park, which opened in 2004 near Williamsburg. The attraction was a collaboration between landowner Everette H. Newman and Texas sculptor David Adickes, who was inspired to create the giant busts after a visit to Mount Rushmore.
The $10 million park struggled for attendance over its six years, in part because it was hidden behind a hotel and was miles from Colonial Williamsburg.
“The location just wasn’t that good,” Hankins said.
Adickes also created a similar park in Lead, S.D., near Mount Rushmore. Like the Williamsburg location, it closed after failing to attract visitors.
When the Virginia Presidents Park went into foreclosure in 2010, Hankins was hired to remove the busts and crush them. Instead, he decided to save them.
“When they asked me to get rid of them, I immediately starting thinking of how I could move them without destroying them,” he said.
Moving the statues wasn’t easy.
A hole was punched in the top of the head of every bust so a crane could move them from their pedestals to a trailer. Doing so caused each bust to crack along the neckline, but Hankins said the damage is easily repaired. He said the cost of moving the busts was about $50,000.
Interest in the giant presidential heads was renewed a few weeks ago when photos of the busts were published on the AbandonedEarth feed on Instragram. Since then, media from around the world have descended on Hankins’ farm, including a crew from Japan’s NHK network that interviewed him recently.
“It’s a little overwhelming, but I expected it,” he said of the attention.
Although the public can’t see the statues because they are on private property, Hankins plans to restore the busts at an estimated cost of $8,000 to $10,000 each, including pedestals and relocation, and display them in a new museum. He plans to break ground on the project within the next nine to 18 months, he said.
While no site has been officially announced, Hankins said he has had discussions with Colonial Williamsburg and Williamsburg city officials about locating the museum in the Williamsburg area. If those plans don’t pan out, Northern Virginia is an option, he said.
Hankins said the busts will be more interactive at the new museum than they were at Presidents Park, with visitors being able to push a button to hear the presidents speak.
Hankins has secured an Air Force One aircraft and a presidential limousine for the transportation portion of the museum, he said, and Secret Service agents dating to the administration of President John F. Kennedy have pledged to donate artifacts.
A bust of President Barack Obama will have to wait until the new museum is built, Hankins said. He plans to add Obama and the winner of this year’s presidential election to the lineup at the same time.
Hankins recently started a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money for the museum. As of Monday, it had raised $655 toward its goal of $500,000. He also has a Facebook page dedicated to the project.
Despite all the attention, Hankins remains humble about his role in saving the presidential busts.
“I feel like the keeper of them,” he said. “They’re the subject, not me.”
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Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, https://www.timesdispatch.com
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