Until 2010. That was the home of all 42 of , and heulptures actually was also instrumental and commissioned in 2010 to come take these sculptures when that park went bankrupt and put them in his stone crusher. He did not have the heart to do that, thank god, and spent a considerable amount of his own money to transport everyone of these one by one from that bankrupt park to his property here as a way to store them temporarily and till he figured out what he wanted to do with them. Is david adicks. If he is still alive, he is in his early 90s. He was a painter based out of houston, who was visiting friends in canada and was coming home by way of Mount Rushmore and became so inspired by what he saw that he wanted to recreate the president s on a smaller scale and created three sets of them, one of which went to a little town in south dakota to a park is now abandoned. He has a set, himself, in his and this wastudio in third set that was president s park and is now here in the little town of kroger. Nine years later, and you can see all of them have experienced a significant amount of dk, and as a result of that, they have kind of become this internet sensation. Im not going to say they have become this popular primarily apart, they are falling but i suspect that has something to do with it. Here they said, all 42 of them in this field, and we now have hundreds of people per month that come down here to see them because mr. Hankins has been so generous in allowing us that opportunity. They were offlimits for a number of years. When they were originally moved public toanted the enjoy them, so he kept it open for everybody to come down. The problem with that was there were Young Children climbing on these 18 foot tall statues and the liability was in thence, so testify ugly so, it became becameably so, it private and the only people who came across pass. Ive proposed something to him that allowed the public to enjoy them that would protect them legally in the form of a waiver entrance fee for the walking tour, which is getting ready to occur in about an hour and then we also have separate evening photo shoots designed for intermediate and advanced photographers where we come and shoot them under the stars. It has been a wonderful thing so far. That is we are at a standstill until we figure out what the future of these heads are going to be. They were originally slated to go somewhere in the northeast. That has temporarily been put on hold and there are other proposals on the table for people that either want to buy them, move them, or possibly even create a studio here, but until that happens, until there is some clarity to the situation on random weekends, i conduct tours down here so people are able to enjoy. Does anyone know what his nickname was . Why did they call him old . Ickory as old hickory. He was one bad dude. It was kind of an engineering feat as to how he moved them, because despite the fact that these are hollow, they are also anywhere between 17,000 to 22,000 pounds. Not that many people would find that easy to transport. Albeit, only for 12 miles. What he ended up doing is that every one of these president s has a hole intentionally put in the top of their head. The purpose of that was to endoskeletoneel at allowed one of mr. Hankins excavators to gain enough purchase of lift to be able to put it onto a flatbed full of tires. Then they strapped them down and moved them here one by one. The interesting thing about that is not all of these sculptures are the same size. Here,are 42 of them despite the fact that there are 43 president s represented. That is because Grover Cleveland served twice. The sculptor decided that he themd to make seven of grander than the remaining 35 and that was because he thought that it would be neat to recognize that vip president s in a larger format. Seven of the president s, including george, andrew, abe, woodrow wilson, the seventhe back of president s, who he identifies through interviewing historians, president ial act spurts experts, academics, history teachers, professors, who they the seven most influential president s, so that is why they are 25 larger than the remaining 35. For him toty easy take the 35 smaller ones first and stack them in rows of 11. Some reason, Thomas Jefferson, who in my opinion deserves to be upfront with thege and aid, got stuck in back, and that is for reasons that are unbeknownst to me. He is the only vip president who isnt in the front row. All the other ones were stacked had thehis excavator capacity to lift each and everyone of them based on its max capacity of lift. The problem he encountered was when he got to the larger president s, one excavator wouldnt work, so he had to use two. Was able to successfully then start stacking the larger president s in front starting with woodrow wilson, teddy roosevelt, fdr, then he realized that if he took the final three, washington, jackson, and lincoln, that would it would be of security of obscurative to the remaining ones. These are the three he chose and we will talk about why and a moment. That is why the schematic and the order of them occurred. It is fairly random, but you see most of the smaller ones are set back and the larger ones are up front. George is one of the favorites, born heously was was born around 95 miles from here in the little place in westmoreland county, and he was a redhead. A lot of people think she wore a wig. He didnt. He powdered hair. He was a distiller of whiskey the father oflled the american foxhound. He had at any given point of to 30 different foxhounds. Two of which were named drunkard and tipsy and she had an intense fear of being buried alive, which, believe it or not, was not terribly uncommon in the 1700s peel 1700s. People were dying of cholera and smallpox, and they were thought to be catatonic from their diseases and prematurely buried. He lived with an intense fear of being buried alive. He will never be outflanked militarily. Only military ranking above fivestar general that allows him to never be outranked and he was also the only president to never live in the white house. It wasnt until John John Adams came around that he began to occupy the white house. From, i believe a Throat Infection or tracheal inflammation or something, and they called it bloodletting, where they were blood letting him and his last words to the well. Ere tis andrew, although it is tough to see from here, he had some actual he is the only sculpture here that mr. Hankins attempted to clean up, and coincidentally, he was trying to clean up some decay on his cheeks. Oddly enough, Andrew Jackson spent most of his life with a scar on his cheek, because when he was a young man, i believe for the tennessee militia, he took a sword to the face from a soldier after president jackson refused to shine his boots. He died, i believe, with a couple bullets in his chest, not from being shot, but had engaged several others in gun duels and his nickname was old hickory because people said he was tough as old hickory. The other interesting fact about president jackson is he apparently taught his parrot, his pet parrot how to swear, and that became problematic in the white house for some of his guest. People often ask me on tours, they understand why Abraham Lincoln and George Washington are up front, but the question my Andrew Jackson is front and center. All three of these are on dollar bills, monetary american currency, but people suspect, rightfully so, that Thomas Jefferson and or fdr should probably be up here front and center with the big three and i dont disagree with that, so i myally asked the owner Andrew Jackson ended up here front and center, and his response to me was very interesting. He said, well that is simple. Hes got really pretty hair and i like his epaulet. And he does, hes got nice hair and great epaulets. Started doing the stores and talking about legitimate president ial accomplishments, and no one cared. People werent entertained. Then i said how Andrew Jacksons lovedswore and people this stuff. People want to hear the silly odd stuff. President lincoln, the tallest of all the president s at 64, which was pretty darn tall for back in the day, contrary to that, the shortest president was resident james madison, who was a full foot shorter than that and was 54, and 99 pounds. President lincoln, obviously assassinated in the ford theater , and he actually predicted his death from a dream that he had had the night before. S grant to have been his guest that night who had to bail at on president te and lincolns desk in the oval office the night he was assassinated was legislation to secret service, albeit not for president ial primarily for counterfeiting purses purposes but i thought it was ironic. He was also a worldclass wrestledand supposedly in more than 300 matches, losing only one of them. Someone told me he is enshrined in the World Wrestling hall of fame, which i thought was interesting. Coincidentally, i want to show you something over here. Of all 42 sculptures, the only one to take a spill off of a flatbed was a. The hole in the back of his head was not intentional. The one on the top was. That occurred when he fell off a flatbed, which i thought was pretty ironic, so that is a Little Something about these three. The remaining 39 statues are kind of clustered together in this patch of grass and in the summer time, you cant even see the whole right side of this entire cluster because it is so overgrown and basically what becomes a forest. At first, i had a problem with that because it was obscuring a lot of the president s and we realized it made for need photography and like this creepy, cool, haunted forest you can walk through these leaves and bushes and look up at these president s that are kind of butrouded in the shrubbery, it finally became so overwhelming that the groundskeeper came and took it all down. It is beginning to grow back, as you can see. Some of the president s here are and other deadds grass that is growing up. , the onlymes buchanan one of the president s to be staring down. You look at the orientations of all of their heads and most of them are staring straight at you. He has this look where the angle of his head is looking right down in, and whether it is in the day or at night, it imparts a super creepy feeling that makes me uneasy. Someone also once told me he was the only of all the president s to never marry, which i thought was an interesting fact. President s hayes, grant, garfield, they all to me look kind of similar. You can tell that all of the ear from all the sculptures is time specific. With is military garb grant where he has got some stars on his shoulders, and if you go down to george bush junior, you will notice he has some elephants on his tie, which i thought was interesting. James garfield, what i have read , had an interesting talent where he could write a sentence whilene hand in latin simultaneously writing another sentence with his other hand in greek, which i thought was fascinating. Is sometimes difficult for people to recognize. Dont know why hes pretty true to form, but he sits there in the back and he looks fairly young. Gerald ford is right next to him the interesting thing about gerald ford is he was the most difficult of all the sculptures for mr. Attucks to create, because his features are so im pronounced. Contrary, president lincoln was the easiest for him because his features are so pronounced, which i thought was interesting. Seeas jefferson, as you can , is probably the third most decayed president here. You see that he is starting to fall apart pretty bad and he died, so ive heard, on the same day as john adams, four hours apart, albeit on july 4, which i thought was an interesting piece of history. Days in the summer, often we allow our guests to walk through here, but you can see this area is pretty wet. Weve had some significant weather here lately. Weve never seen snakes back here, but it looks like an area that is completely conducive to snakes, so i always make sure my are mindful of that as they are walking through here. The result kinds of different weather where we will conduct these tours and the neatest thing i have seen is a bald search bald eagle circling georges head. He have been out here in electrical thunderstorms at night where it looks like there are lightning strikes coming out of fdrs mouth. Ive not been back here in the winter time, but i know a lot of people would absolutely die to photograph or see these in the snow, so that will be very exciting. And fog. Fog would be the perfect element to see these and experience them. Come over here. This is one of my personal favorites. Died in his who fourth term. The hole on the top of his head is pretty pronounced relative to the holes on the rest of their heads. I dont know why, but you can see the steel infrastructure coming out of it. He supposedly was a victim of and ive read somewhere that some current physicians nowadays arent absolutely convinced he had polio. Regardless of the authenticity of the claim, either because he was a victim of polio or purportedly had polio, because he was such a highprofile individual, a lot of people say thousands of lives were saved because of the acceleration of the timeline and appropriation of funds that ultimately ended up in the vaccine created, which i thought was an interesting tidbit of information. Junior, whoge bush. S also highly decayed if you can zoom in on his time, you can see where he has this element. A lot of people love seeing that. The most decayed president s woodrow wilson. He pretty much looks like he has leprosy, and the question always comes up, is there a rhyme or reason as to why these guys are decaying at a faster rate than the remaining . I just dont understand or know if there is any reason behind it. Perhaps he is in a wind pattern or rain pattern that makes them more susceptible to cracking. I just dont know, but i do know is if you look at closely at this president , who was one of eight virginia president s, born and raised in stanton, look in his right eyeball. That is a wasps nest, which is not uncommon. Often youll see them in the nostrils of the sculptures, as well. A few of them are starting to miss some parts. Lyndon johnson is starting to lose the end of his nose. Ronald reagan was one that was struck by lightning a few years back, but he has been andessively cleaned up probably the most difficult of all the president s to identify his back here behind president reagan. No one has ever gotten this right. As a matter of fact, i had to study him hard to know who that is. That is Warren Harding and behind him as john adams who is tough to see because of all of the overgrowth. Test fact i have come across through a lot of my research is Ronald Reagan when he was asked what his proudest accomplishment is in life was, it had nothing to do with his presidency, nor his acting career. He was proud that he claims to have saved 77 lives from when he was a young man as a lifeguard and i thought that was very interesting. ,he question always comes up will obama ever be here or was he ever here . The answer to that question is the goal for the original park was every time a president was to come into office, that a two foot tall prototype was going to be made as a sample approved upon and brought fullscale. When obama was coming into office, they approached the owner of the park at the time and who i think had already recognized the Financial Difficulties that were going on and declined for financial reasons to go full scale on the obama, who lived in this green shipping container along with a for many,white house many years. Unbeknownst to me, one of my photography students that was here for a night workshop decided that when i left, he came back and stole him, took him. That didnt go over very well at all. Place isly, this rigged with security cameras and we figured out who it was. Momentmed he had a weak and brought baby obama back, so we now keep him lock and key and have only brought him out five times. Sometimes with security guards, because he is very important and we dont want him to get stolen again. Is there a trump . No, there is not, although the owner has bought a baby one about this big. Reason i got involved with this profession is a photographer and i specialize in abandoned structures. I love everything about abandoned photography, homes, churches, schools, hospitals, diners, you name it. I follow it. Ying, that turned into an instagram following, which turned into a coffee table book. On faculty as an ad jumps speaker and when i have free time in the weekends, they the weekround during to storytelling because these beautiful places in virginia have stories behind them, much like you just heard. A lot of the public really enjoy hearing the back story. They love the pictures, but they want to know there is no closure until they get the back they realized how much the public loved that and started doing professional storytelling. That started in libraries and escalated into theaters and now, i do that at the actual abandoned places themselves, so i approached the owner about that, told him i could protect him legally, make him some money to go back into his foundation and allow the public to come back here to enjoy these, so he allowed me to do that and it has since heremed ever and in other places. This is, by far, the most spectacular. Any questions . Check on my wife and come back. You have until 4 00. Why are you attracted to abandoned and decaying places . Two reasons. Number one, i love the texture. I love mystery. From a just something photographic perspective i absolutely love and i am a type a personality. Love the social part about it and the challenge of going out to the community, knocking on doors, walking into fire ,tations, interviewing loitering at gas stations, all fellowspirit of meeting virginians. To me, it is enjoyable. I love it. I absolutely love it, so what started as a simple hobby to grow an instagram following has quickly graduated into a pretty strong devotion to allowing virginians to develop a deeper appreciation of the past through visual experiences like this. [playing of hail to the chief] are in this election season, the candidates beyond the talking points are only revealed over time. But since you cant be everywhere, there is cspan. Our campaign 2020 program differs from all of the political coverage for one simple reason. It is cspan. Weve brought you here unfiltered view of government every day since 1979 and this year, we are bringing you an unfiltered view of the people looking to steer this government in november. In other words, your future. Season, go deep, direct, and unfiltered. See the biggest picture for yourself and make up your own mind, with cspan 2020, brought to you as a Public Service by your television provider. Monday night on the communicators, from the state of the net conference, we will discuss technology and the internet with congresswoman kathy rogers, congressman will heard, and ellen weintraub. Watch the community communicators monday night on cspan2. Next, from the kansas city public library, coauthors david mills and kill westra talk about their book great wartime escapes and rescues. In an illustrated talk, they focus on world war ii prisons ers of war and concentration camps. Good evening. Im with the libraries Public Affairs staff. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. Thanks to the u. S. Army command and general staff. One of our longest, best, one of our favorite programming partners for yet another of what i know will be a compelling presentation