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

sites of early American history. You know, horse-drawn carriages, old buildings, guys in those

triangle-shaped hats. 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 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. You heard from someone

who heard from someone that if you turn down the right little back road, you'll find a field

full of statues, hulking 20-foot-tall busts of almost every American president, George Washington through George W. Bush.

Slowly crumbling into dust.

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

This episode was produced in partnership with Visit Williamsburg.

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

We'll talk to the artist who sculpted them and learn why they have

been forsaken in a field. After this. If you're wondering who has both the patience and the skills to sculpt giant busts of every president,

I'd like you to meet David Addox.

Okay, well, I was in World War II.

Remember that one? In all the papers. Okay. Well, I was in World War II. Remember that one? I was in all the papers.

David's originally from Texas.

But he served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and that brought him to France.

He'd always been artistic.

He was the kind of kid who like doodling in the margins of his notebooks.

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

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

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