Adickes created three sets of statues inspired by his 1994 visit to Mount Rushmore. Some busts from the other sets have since been acquired, according to the Adickes website.

For example, the Aldine Management District of Greater Houston acquired a bust of John F. Kennedy in 2023, which now stands outside an entrance to George HW Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

Adickes died last year at the age of 98.

Created by local businesswoman Everette Newman and Adickes, the attraction in historic Williamsburg operated from 2004 to 2010.

The busts, each measuring 15 to 20 feet tall, were well maintained in the 10-acre park, which Hankins helped build.

“The unusual thing about visiting Presidents Park would be being up close to these enormous heads,” Hankins told National Geographic in 2017. “You almost feel like they’re looking at you because of the way the sculptor worked on them.”

The park closed due to financial problems in 2010. The land was auctioned in 2012 and was eventually won by a car rental company.

Hankins, a commercial recycler by trade, was hired to oversee the destruction of the heads at his industrial stone crusher. In the end he didn’t have the heart to crush them.

“Instead of doing that, he spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to move the heads, which weigh more than 20,000 pounds each, to his property to save them,” photographer John Plashal told Business Insider in 2020.

The property, a 400-acre farm and industrial recycling site, is located just over 10 miles north of Williamsburg in rural Croaker, Virginia. According to Hankins’ estimates, the process of transporting the heads cost him about $50,000, Smithsonian Magazine reported.

Among the statues that were damaged, Lincoln’s head fell off, leaving a giant hole in the back, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

During the transfer, which involved lifting the statues with a crane and transporting them on a truck, other presidents suffered scars and lost appendages such as noses.

“He was hoping to open his own park or for some rich, exotic art collector to come. [with] a huge check,” Plashal said.

Hankins told National Geographic that he would “love to find the means to build an educational park that our children from all over the country can come to,” adding that simply sitting in a field could not be the destination for the statues.

The heads began to attract attention when tourists documented them on social media. Plashal said that once people used Instagram and Snapchat, heads “spread like wildfire.”

He realized that the statues were unlike any other abandoned place he had ever been to, as their depiction of powerful men stood in stark contrast to their state of decay.

Plashal is passionate about capturing abandoned places, especially in Virginia, where his work is based. One of the photographer’s goals is to “photograph and document places that offer declining beauty and unique stories,” according to his website. The heads made a perfect combination.

Plashal especially enjoyed capturing images of the heads at night, when he could photograph them against the stars, giving them back some of the majesty they may have lost as they decayed.

Plashal, who had already achieved some success as a photographer and storyteller, was approached by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to be an adjunct speaker.

“I was sent around the state to tell the whole story of the abandoned places I find, document and photograph,” Plashal said.

He realized he could apply this storytelling ability to abandoned heads.

Since Hankins had already spent a small fortune saving the statues from destruction, Plashal agreed that they could serve a greater purpose than sitting in a field. From the attention on social media and in-person visitors, he also knew the demand was there.

But because they were on Hankins’ private property, Plashal said, all the visitors were trespassing on private property when they came to see the heads up close, perhaps not realizing the property was private.

“A lot of people think the statues reside in a wheat field or something,” Plashal said.

The first tour, held in 2019, was received with enthusiasm.

“I approached Hankins to do it because presidents’ heads are the last abandoned place in Virginia, if not the world, and it exploded,” said Plashal, pictured above giving a tour in 2019.

“There are a lot of people who want to see these things,” Plashal told Hankins.

Because Hankins had legal concerns about the potentially dangerous nature of the heads, Plashal asks guests to sign waiver forms before entering the property.

Plashal offers paid tours of the attraction on a limited basis, both during the day and during the nighttime tour, “The Night of the Presidents’ Heads.”

Stories and facts about the bosses are shared and guests can win prizes in a presidential trivia game.

In June, the county Board of Supervisors voted on a rezoning project that, in addition to partially restoring the sculptures and turning the heads into a suitable attraction, would have added a museum, housing units and commercial space to the land around the statues.

However, 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 in no rush.

“I think when it’s right, it’ll happen, so I can’t worry about it,” Hankins told WTKR News.

“It meant a lot to me to preserve history,” Hankins told National Geographic in 2017.