City of Presidents

Rapid City calls itself the City of Presidents, and the title is earned with bronze: life-size statues of the American presidents stand on downtown street corners, and walking from one to the next is one of the easiest and most enjoyable free activities in town. The idea began with a local man, Don Perdue, who noticed how naturally people engaged with a temporary Abraham Lincoln statue outside the Hotel Alex Johnson and imagined a whole city of them. He proposed the project to the city in 1999, and the first four statues, of George Washington, John Adams, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, were unveiled a year later. A statue is commissioned only after a president leaves office, each one is privately funded, and a local artist researches the subject before creating it, a process that can take up to nine months. The statues match each president's height and weight, with one famous exception: William Howard Taft was slimmed down to reduce cost. The trail now numbers more than forty figures, and the walk takes you past the heart of downtown, near Main Street Square and Art Alley. It works for every age because the figures are at street level and there are no tickets.

The trail has several ways to be explored, and they are all free or inexpensive. A free mobile tour app provides an interactive map, a statue directory and audio narration, which suits visitors who like to wander and listen. A printed City of Presidents guide is available at the Rapid City Visitor Center on Main Street, and a digital copy is available online.

Braille guides can be checked out free from the Visitor Center, a dial-in tour follows the guide for anyone without a smartphone, and a scavenger hunt on the brochure comes with a prize at the end, which turns the walk into a game for children. The trail is supported by donations, and the tourism board invites contributions toward the statues.

Plan the walk around comfort rather than completeness. Downtown Rapid City is compact, but covering every corner takes a couple of hours, and in summer heat or winter cold it can feel long. A good approach is to pick up a guide, choose a loop that starts near Main Street Square and walk the figures that interest you, then stop for coffee or a meal and finish another day.

The statues change slowly, since each new figure is added only after a president leaves office, so the trail is a living project rather than a finished one. Kids tend to enjoy finding their favorite presidents and posing beside them, and adults often find that reading the short biographies adds more than expected.

City of Presidents is also a good starting point for a downtown day. It sits within a short walk of the Journey Museum, Prairie Edge, Art Alley and Main Street Square, and the Hotel Alex Johnson, where the original Lincoln statue stood, is part of the same stretch. For travelers on a budget, it is one of the strongest free attractions in the Black Hills, and for travelers who like history, it is a lighter counterpart to the heavier stories told at the memorial and the museums.

If the weather is good, go in the late afternoon when the light is soft and the downtown restaurants are warming up. If it is not, pick a handful of statues close to a cafe and make it a short, easy stroll.