42 crumbling – In rural Croaker, Virginia, 42 giant presidential heads—crumbling on private land for more than a decade after a Williamsburg attraction shut down—have been saved from destruction and turned into periodic paid tours. A rezoning vote failed 3-2 in June, leaving
On most afternoons. the heads sit still—15 to 20 feet tall. close together. and slowly surrendering to wind and weather in rural Croaker. Virginia. But when people finally step onto the property and look up at Washington. Jefferson. Roosevelt. and Lincoln in concrete and steel. it’s hard to mistake what’s happening for simple decay.
These 42 presidential statues have become a tourist destination of their own, even as they crumble. They were meant to be temporary—an attraction in Williamsburg that closed in 2010—and they were supposed to be destroyed once the land changed hands. Instead, one man moved them at enormous cost and decided the story deserved saving.
The busts began as an ambitious art project by Houston-based sculptor David Adickes. who created three sets of statues inspired by his 1994 visit to Mount Rushmore. The heads in Croaker were part of those sets, each measuring between 15 and 20 feet tall. Some busts from the other sets were later acquired; in 2023. Greater Houston’s Aldine Management District acquired a bust of John F. Kennedy that now sits outside an entrance to the George H.W. Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. Adickes died last year at the age of 98.
In their early life, the heads were housed in a park called Presidents Park in Williamsburg. It opened in 2004, built by local entrepreneur Everette Newman and Adickes. For six years—from 2004 to 2010—the 10-acre park kept the statues well maintained. Hankins later helped build that park. Visitors came to see a rare experience: standing close to the enormous heads. In 2017. Howard Hankins described it to National Geographic as something that made you feel watched—“You almost feel they’re looking at you from the way the sculptor did the work on them.”.
But financial troubles brought the park to a close in 2010. The land was auctioned off in 2012 and eventually won by a car-rental business. Hankins was then hired to destroy the heads in his industrial stone crusher. He didn’t.
Hankins is a commercial recycler by profession, and he was contracted to oversee the destruction of the statues. According to photographer John Plashal, Hankins ultimately didn’t have the heart to crush them. Rather than doing that. he spent tens of thousands of dollars out of his own money to move the heads—each weighing over 20. 000 pounds—to his property in Croaker. The trip, Plashal said to Business Insider in 2020, cost Hankins about $50,000, a figure reported by Smithsonian Magazine. The property is a 400-acre farm and industrial recycling space located just over 10 miles north of Williamsburg.
The move wasn’t clean. Some statues were damaged when they were lifted with a crane and transported on a flatbed truck. Lincoln’s head fell over, leaving a giant hole on the back side, Smithsonian Magazine reported. Other presidents were scarred and lost appendages like noses.
Still, Hankins’ hope for a more dignified afterlife lasted longer than the original park. For years, his big plans didn’t materialize. Plashal said Hankins hoped he would either open his own park or that an “exotic and wealthy art collector” would come with “a huge check.” Hankins told National Geographic that he’d “love to find the means to build an educational park for our kids to come to from all over the country. ” adding that leaving the heads simply “sitting in a field” could not be their fate.
It was social media that changed the timeline. Tourists began documenting the abandoned heads on social platforms. and Plashal said that once people took to Instagram and Snapchat. the statues “spread like wildfire.” He realized the heads were different from other abandoned places he’d explored—powerful men captured in stone and metal. set against a state of neglect. That contrast is what drew attention, and it is also what drew Plashal.
Plashal’s own work focuses on photographing abandoned places, especially in Virginia. One of his goals. according to his website. is to “photograph and document places that offer beauty in decay and unique histories.” He says the heads matched that mission perfectly. He was especially drawn to photographing them at night. framing them against the stars to return some of the majesty the statues were losing as they decayed.
His storytelling skills soon caught notice beyond Croaker. Plashal said he was approached by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to be an adjunct speaker. “They sent me around the state to storytell about all the history of the abandoned places that I find and document and photograph. ” he said. With that experience. he found a way to apply his storytelling to the heads—and to meet the demand that had already appeared.
Hankins had already spent money saving the statues. and Plashal agreed the heads could serve a larger purpose than sitting in a field. But there was a hard reality underneath the growing interest: because the statues sit on Hankins’ private property. Plashal said visitors who came close were trespassing. possibly not realizing it was private land. “A lot of people think the statues reside in a wheat field or something,” Plashal said.
So he proposed tours.
The first tour was held in 2019, and it was met with enthusiasm. Plashal said he approached Hankins because the presidents’ heads were “the ultimate abandoned place in Virginia — if not the world — and it blew up.” From that point. the appeal became steadier and more organized. Plashal said there were “a lot of people who want to see these things.”.
Because Hankins had legal concerns about the potentially dangerous nature of the heads. Plashal requires guests to sign waiver forms before entering the property. Tours are still offered periodically, including both daytime and nighttime tours. Plashal offers paid tours limited in basis. including a nighttime tour titled “Night of the Presidents Heads.” During those visits. stories and facts about the heads are shared. and guests can win prizes in a presidential trivia game.
The current attention is clearly bigger than what Presidents Park managed during its original run. even if the heads now look far worse than they did in 2004. Plashal continues to give tours, and the statues’ popularity has not been limited to daylight hours. Their eerie nighttime look—stars above. concrete faces below—has turned what could have been a forgotten relic into a recurring stop for people searching for something unusual.
For all that, the statues’ future still depends on land-use decisions. In June. the county’s Board of Supervisors voted on a rezoning project that. in addition to partially restoring the sculptures and turning the heads into a proper attraction. would have added a museum. housing units. and commercial space around the statues. The board “voted 3-2 to take no action on the project,” WTKR News reported. The board plans to reevaluate the proposal again in the fall, but Hankins said he is not rushing.
“I believe when it’s right, it will happen — so I can’t worry about it,” Hankins told WTKR News.
On the property today, many of the heads have caved in, and the scars from the move remain visible. Yet Plashal believes visitors will keep coming for years. turning the site into an “Easter Island of North America.” Hankins has long framed the effort as more than tourism. “It meant a lot to me to preserve history,” he told National Geographic in 2017.
Croaker Virginia presidential statues Mount Rushmore David Adickes Howard Hankins John Plashal Presidents Park Williamsburg rezoning project Board of Supervisors Night of the Presidents Heads