A “National Garden of American Heroes” that has been in the works since President Donald Trump’s first term in office will be located in West Potomac Park, the president announced Friday on Truth Social.
“Right now, it is a totally BARREN field of Prime Waterfront Real Estate along our Mighty Potomac River,” he said of the area that will host the statues in the future.
According to the official Washington D.C. tourist site, West Potomac Park is the area between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. It includes a Tidal Basin and iconic cherry trees.
The DC Preservation League describes the park as “one of the nation’s most important designed landscapes.”
“When finished, West Potomac Park will be a World Class Masterpiece with elegant Landscaping, and adorned with Beautiful Statues, and be yet another one of my great projects to make Washington, D.C., the Safest and Most Beautiful Capital in the World,” said Trump.
Some of Trump’s project’s in the nation’s capital have been met with resistance. For example, a judge halted work on a planned ballroom addition to the White House this year.
Plans for a National Garden of Heroes goes back to Trump’s first term. Near the end of that term in 2021, he signed an executive order to establish the statuary park. With that order, Trump also established the Interagency Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes (Task Force) and directed it to plan for construction of the National Garden.
Before that order, a 2020 executive order previously called for the project to be completed prior to July 4 of this year for the 250th anniversary of the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence. The Hill noted that the project did not receive funding from Congress and that former President Joe Biden scrapped it when he took office in 2021.
Trump’s second administration has multiple initiatives running related to the nation’s anniversary, including celebrations in the capitol like a UFC fight on the White House lawn. Trump has also signed an executive order since returning to the White House last year to execute plans for the project “expeditiously.”
Trump said in his Friday announcement that the garden will feature statues of the U.S. Founding Fathers (President George Washington, President John Adams, President Thomas Jefferson, President James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay), as well as military heroes, religious leaders, civil rights leaders, athletes, artists, entertainers and more. Per the National Endowment for the Humanities, the statues must be life-size and made of marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass.
“The people of America (and the World!) will come here to learn and be inspired by the ‘Greats,’” he said. “The National Garden of American Heroes is one more project we are undertaking to honor the 250th Birthday of the Greatest Nation on Earth, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!”
