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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

President Heads (Classic)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

42 giant busts of U.S. presidents are slowly crumbling in a field in Virginia. READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/president-heads

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

So you've just spent the day in Colonial Williamsburg and you've been soaking up the various

0:08.0

sites of early American history.

0:10.6

You know, horse-drawn carriages, old buildings, guys in those triangle-shaped hats.

0:16.5

And so no one would blame you if you'd had your fill of American history for the day. But before you head home, there's one last thing you might want to see.

0:25.4

You heard from someone who heard from someone that if you turn down the right little back road,

0:31.2

you'll find a field full of statues, hulking 20-foot-tall busts of almost

0:37.9

every American president, George Washington through George W Bush, Bush. Bush, slowly crumbling into dust.

0:47.0

I'm Dylan Thras and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

0:58.0

Today we're going to Croaker, Virginia to visit the iconic ill-fated president's heads.

1:03.5

We'll talk to the artist who sculpted them

1:05.7

and learn why they have been forsaken in a field.

1:09.2

That's after this. If you're wondering who has both the patience and the skills to sculpt giant busts of every president,

1:38.0

I'd like you to meet David Attucks.

1:41.0

Okay, well, I was in World War II.

1:44.0

You remember that one?

1:45.0

It was in all the papers.

1:48.0

David's originally from Texas, but he served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and that brought him to France.

1:55.0

He'd always been artistic. He was the kind of kid who like doodling in the margins of his notebooks.

2:00.0

But to be in Paris in seeing it all as a young man said man this is where I want to be

2:09.8

So I finished my service and then took my GI Bill to do two years in Paris.

2:18.8

David Attix was primarily a painter, but over time he started to work in sculpture as well. And in 1994, he got his biggest

2:26.7

commission to sculpt a 67 foot tall statue of Sam Houston, the city's namesake and former governor and president of Texas.

...

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