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TheNational Garden of American Heroes is a proposedsculpture garden honoring "great figures of America's history".[1] The concept was first put forward by PresidentDonald Trump in 2020 during anIndependence Day event inKeystone, South Dakota.[2][3][4] It was included in a series ofexecutive orders issued by Trump in the final months of his first term in office that sought to addressconservative cultural grievances.[4] In July 2025,Congress passed theOne Big Beautiful Bill Act,[5] which appropriates $40 million to establish and maintain the National Garden of American Heroes.
Trump's vision for the garden includes the creation of 250 statues depicting notableFounding Fathers, activists, political figures, businesspeople, athletes, celebrities, and pop culture icons.[4][6][3][7][8][9] Initial reactions by historians were largely negative, with many criticizing the choices as seemingly random and political.[10] Reactions by sculptors were also negative, with many describing the requested criteria for the statues as unrealistic and unworkable for the money and timetable expected.[11]
Trump's order said that the proposed garden would be managed by the Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes, which would allocate funding from theInterior Department to establish the site. Members of the task force would include chairs of theNational Endowment for the Arts andNational Endowment for the Humanities, theAdministrator of General Services, the chair of theAdvisory Council on Historic Preservation, and any additional "officers or employees of any executive department or agency" designated by the president.[12] Trump described the garden as a response to the practice ofremoving monuments and memorials; many such monuments were removed or destroyed in 2020 as part of a response to theGeorge Floyd protests.[2][12] In his Mount Rushmore speech announcing the proposal, Trump claimed that "Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities" and pledged to build "a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live".[10]
Under Trump's Executive Order 13934, issued July 3, 2020, the task force was granted 60 days to develop preliminary plans for the site, including a potential location,[13] and was to open before July 4, 2026, the250th anniversary of the adoption of theDeclaration of Independence.[12] The original executive order listed 31 historical figures as examples of those who would receive a statue in the Garden.[1] On January 18, 2021—two days before leaving office—Trump signed a new executive order listing 244 historical figures, including all 31 previously named, of those who would receive statues.[14][15][16][17] That revised list included 192 men and 52 women.[18]
In 2021, the garden was considered highly unlikely to ever be built, andCongress never appropriated any funds for the project.[19] On May 14, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that revoked both of Trump's executive orders on the Garden, as well as various other Trump-issued executive orders.[4][20][21]
On January 29, 2025, Trump revoked Biden's executive order related to the garden and called for six additional names to be added to the list of historical figures. The timeline of its construction was modified from July 4, 2026, to "as expeditiously as possible".[9] During a 2025Black History Month reception at theWhite House, Trump said a statue ofPrince Estabrook, aBlack Patriot, would be in the garden.[22]Vince Haley, chair of theDomestic Policy Council, would be responsible for selecting the final list of 250 subjects.[23]
In March 2025 South Dakota GovernorLarry Rhoden sent Trump a proposal to build the garden in theBlack Hills region in the state nearMount Rushmore on a plot of private land that will be donated.[24]
In April 2025, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced it would sponsor grants to artists for the planned works, in a joint effort with the National Endowment for the Arts.[23]
In April 2025, theNational Endowment for the Humanities announced a grant program of $200,000 per statue paid for in part by canceled grants for other arts and humanities projects by Elon Musk'sDepartment of Government Efficiency. It directed that statues were portrayed in a "realistic manner," with no modernist or abstract designs allowed.[25] The Executive Order mandated further that the work must be "in the classical style, lifelike, and created from marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass,".[26]
In May 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a comprehensive budget reconciliation package.[5] Section 80305 of the bill appropriates $40 million to the Department of the Interior to establish and maintain the National Garden of American Heroes.
The bill's passage marked the first congressional funding for the garden, which had previously been authorized solely through executive orders during President Trump's first term.[27]
In 2020,James R. Grossman, the executive director of theAmerican Historical Association, said that "The choices vary from odd to probably inappropriate to provocative" and suggested that the proposal was an attempt by Trump "to seize on a cultural conflict to distract from other issues" during an election season, as suggested by the short (60-day) timetable that Trump set forth in his order.[10] HistorianKaren Cox described the executive order about the proposed monument as "random" and said that "Nothing about this suggests it's thoughtful".[10] Historian Adam Domby noted that the initial proposal did not includeNative Americans, although Red Cloud, Chief Joseph, Sacagawea, Chief Sitting Bull, Tecumseh, and Jim Thorpe have since been selected. Domby also noted that the initial proposal included GeneralGeorge Patton but omitted PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, although both generals are now slated for inclusion as are other historical military figures.[10] Several of the chosen statues were criticized for their stances on race, and criticism was made that the garden featured more conservative intellectuals than left-leaning ones.[11]
In 2025,Politico reported that sculptors who saw the design specifications for Trump's garden described it as unrealistic, and that "America doesn't have enough quality sculptors or museum-caliber foundries to make this happen on Trump's speedy timeline". Daniel Kunitz, editor ofSculpture magazine, called the proposal "completely unworkable". The report stated that most fine-arts foundries in the United States are booked six to 18 months in advance, and that sculpture experts mused the only place that could create the desired sculptures on the timetable requested was in China. It further quoted fine arts experts who stated that such collaborations ran the risk of having work be "slapdash and uninspired", and quoted one sculpture expert who likened the attempt to "a government-run version of Madame Tussaud's wax museum". The report questioned who would apply for the $200,000 commission, noting both low opinion of Trump in the artistic community and noting that the money offered was low after the costs of base casting and material were applied, which were requested to be granite, bronze, copper, or brass.[11]
Names marked with an asterisk (*) were included in the original executive order.[28]
