McKinley statue
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The statue of President William McKinley was commissioned by 81-year-old George Zehnder in 1905. Zehnder had met McKinley in 1901 and was much impressed by "the first modern president." The president's assassination soon after moved Zehnder to memorialize the president. Zehnder paid $15,000 for the nine-foot statue. The base alone weighs twenty-six tons.
The statue was sculpted by Armenian artist Haig Patigian in San Francisco, California. The statue's unveiling was postponed due to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The artist discovered his statue lying down in a foundry near the waterfront south of Market Street in San Francisco. It had been knocked down by the quake, but a large plaster model had braced its fall. Patigian feared his statue might melt, but he had to leave it as the statue was too large for him to move. A week later, the foundry owner told Patigian that the statue had been destroyed.
Patigian later discovered that his statue of McKinley had been saved from the burning foundry by the employee of a nearby machine shop, along with several passersby. They had hauled the statue onto a truck, which succumbed to the flame. The statue was moved by steamboat to the nearby port town of Eureka in May, 1906. Zehnder presented the statue to the city of Arcata on July 4, 1906, as "a gift to the city of Arcata for all time to come." Two thousand people, more visitors than the town had ever received, came to Arcata for the unveiling.
The statue, located in the middle of the Arcata Plaza, is in the center of the town's cultural activity. The statue has been embroiled in controversy in Arcata, a liberal college town in Humboldt County, California, since the 1970s. Opponents of the statue decry McKinley's so-called racist and imperialistic policies, while defenders support the statue's historical importance and characterize removal attempts as censorship.
