President Donald Trump on Friday announced that his long-discussed “National Garden of American Heroes” will be built in West Potomac Park, a federally managed area adjacent to the National Mall and the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump described the future statue garden as part of a broader effort to restore and beautify the nation’s capital ahead of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations in 2026.
“When finished, West Potomac Park will be a World Class Masterpiece with elegant Landscaping, and adorned with Beautiful Statues, and be yet another one of my great projects to make Washington, D.C., the Safest and Most Beautiful Capital in the World,” Trump wrote.
The project traces back to Trump’s first term, when he signed an executive order in June 2020 directing the creation of a “National Garden of American Heroes” featuring statues honoring prominent figures from American history. Trump first unveiled the idea during a Mount Rushmore speech in South Dakota, where he framed the initiative as a response to what he called “cancel culture” efforts aimed at tearing down monuments and rewriting American history.
The Hill reported at the time, Trump said the garden would celebrate Americans who “embody the American spirit of daring and defiance, excellence and adventure, courage and confidence, loyalty and love.”
The original order called for the garden to be completed by July 4, 2026, coinciding with the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration. However, Congress never approved funding for the project before Trump left office in January 2021.
Former President Joe Biden later revoked the order after taking office, effectively shelving the project. Trump reinstated the initiative after returning to the White House, signing another executive order directing federal agencies to move forward with the garden “as expeditiously as possible.”
According to planning documents from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the statues are expected to be life-sized and constructed from durable materials such as marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass.
Trump has previously released a list of historical figures proposed for inclusion in the garden. The list spans multiple fields and eras of American life, including Founding Fathers, military leaders, religious figures, civil rights activists, athletes, artists, and entertainers.
“The people of America (and the World!) will come here to learn and be inspired by the ‘Greats,’” Trump wrote in Friday’s announcement.
The garden is expected to become one of several signature projects tied to the administration’s broader plans for the country’s 250th birthday celebration next year.
The latest executive order does not list the Americans whom the garden intends to honor with statues. But a previous order, signed by Trump just before he left office in January 2021, listed 244 names.
The list included artists, politicians, astronauts, sports figures, religious leaders, authors, entertainers, inventors, businessmen, and more:
- Ansel Adams
- John Adams
- Samuel Adams
- Muhammad Ali
- Luis Walter Alvarez
- Susan B. Anthony
- Hannah Arendt
- Louis Armstrong
- Neil Armstrong
- Crispus Attucks
- John James Audubon
- Lauren Bacall
- Clara Barton
- Todd Beamer
- Alexander Graham Bell
- Roy Benavidez
- Ingrid Bergman
- Irving Berlin
- Humphrey Bogart
- Daniel Boone
- Norman Borlaug
- William Bradford
- Herb Brooks
- Kobe Bryant
- William F. Buckley, Jr.
- Sitting Bull
- Frank Capra
- Andrew Carnegie
- Charles Carroll
- John Carroll
- George Washington Carver
- Johnny Cash
- Joshua Chamberlain
- Whittaker Chambers
- Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman
- Ray Charles
- Julia Child
- Gordon Chung-Hoon
- William Clark
- Henry Clay
- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
- Roberto Clemente
- Grover Cleveland
- Red Cloud
- William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody
- Nat King Cole
- Samuel Colt
- Christopher Columbus
- Calvin Coolidge
- James Fenimore Cooper
- Davy Crockett
- Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.
- Miles Davis
- Dorothy Day
- Joseph H. De Castro
- Emily Dickinson
- Walt Disney
- William “Wild Bill” Donovan
- Jimmy Doolittle
- Desmond Doss
- Frederick Douglass
- Herbert Henry Dow
- Katharine Drexel
- Peter Drucker
- Amelia Earhart
- Thomas Edison
- Jonathan Edwards
- Albert Einstein
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Duke Ellington
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Medgar Evers
- David Farragut
- The Marquis de La Fayette
- Mary Fields
- Henry Ford
- George Fox
- Aretha Franklin
- Benjamin Franklin
- Milton Friedman
- Robert Frost
- Gabby Gabreski
- Bernardo de Gálvez
- Lou Gehrig
- Theodor Seuss Geisel
- Cass Gilbert
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- John Glenn
- Barry Goldwater
- Samuel Gompers
- Alexander Goode
- Carl Gorman
- Billy Graham
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Nellie Gray
- Nathanael Greene
- Woody Guthrie
- Nathan Hale
- William Frederick “Bull” Halsey, Jr.
- Alexander Hamilton
- Ira Hayes
- Hans Christian Heg
- Ernest Hemingway
- Patrick Henry
- Charlton Heston
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Billie Holiday
- Bob Hope
- Johns Hopkins
- Grace Hopper
- Sam Houston
- Whitney Houston
- Julia Ward Howe
- Edwin Hubble
- Daniel Inouye
- Andrew Jackson
- Robert H. Jackson
- Mary Jackson
- John Jay
- Thomas Jefferson
- Steve Jobs
- Katherine Johnson
- Barbara Jordan
- Chief Joseph
- Elia Kazan
- Helen Keller
- John F. Kennedy
- Francis Scott Key
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Russell Kirk
- Jeane Kirkpatrick
- Henry Knox
- Tadeusz Kościuszko
- Harper Lee
- Pierre Charles L’Enfant
- Meriwether Lewis
- Abraham Lincoln
- Vince Lombardi
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Clare Boothe Luce
- Douglas MacArthur
- Dolley Madison
- James Madison
- George Marshall
- Thurgood Marshall
- William Mayo
- Christa McAuliffe
- William McKinley
- Louise McManus
- Herman Melville
- Thomas Merton
- George P. Mitchell
- Maria Mitchell
- William “Billy” Mitchell
- Samuel Morse
- Lucretia Mott
- John Muir
- Audie Murphy
- Edward Murrow
- John Neumann
- Annie Oakley
- Jesse Owens
- Rosa Parks
- George S. Patton, Jr.
- Charles Willson Peale
- William Penn
- Oliver Hazard Perry
- John J. Pershing
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Clark Poling
- John Russell Pope
- Elvis Presley
- Jeannette Rankin
- Ronald Reagan
- Walter Reed
- William Rehnquist
- Paul Revere
- Henry Hobson Richardson
- Hyman Rickover
- Sally Ride
- Matthew Ridgway
- Jackie Robinson
- Norman Rockwell
- Caesar Rodney
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Betsy Ross
- Babe Ruth
- Sacagawea
- Jonas Salk
- John Singer Sargent
- Antonin Scalia
- Norman Schwarzkopf
- Junípero Serra
- Elizabeth Ann Seton
- Robert Gould Shaw
- Fulton Sheen
- Alan Shepard
- Frank Sinatra
- Margaret Chase Smith
- Bessie Smith
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
- Jimmy Stewart
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Gilbert Stuart
- Anne Sullivan
- William Howard Taft
- Maria Tallchief
- Maxwell Taylor
- Tecumseh
- Kateri Tekakwitha
- Shirley Temple
- Nikola Tesla
- Jefferson Thomas
- Henry David Thoreau
- Jim Thorpe
- Augustus Tolton
- Alex Trebek
- Harry S. Truman
- Sojourner Truth
- Harriet Tubman
- Dorothy Vaughan
- C. T. Vivian
- John von Neumann
- Thomas Ustick Walter
- Sam Walton
- Booker T. Washington
- George Washington
- John Washington
- John Wayne
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett
- Phillis Wheatley
- Walt Whitman
- Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Roger Williams
- John Winthrop
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Orville Wright
- Wilbur Wright
- Alvin C. York
- Cy Young
- Lorenzo de Zavala
