Our nation’s 29th President Warren G. Harding is generally ranked as one of the worst of the American Presidents. Although he was immensely popular while serving in the White House for just under two and a half years (at which time he died in office while traveling through San Francisco) from 1921-23, many scandals reverberated from his administration and cabinet, most notably the Teapot Dome scandal. His notorious philandering ways even led to the speculation of some that the first lady Florence Kling Harding may have poisoned him. Other notable aspects of Harding’s administration included the fact that he was the first sitting U.S. Senator to be elected President, and the signing of the peace treaties that formally ended World War I while he was President.
Harding is one of four U.S. Presidents to have been both born and buried in the state of Ohio. I have had the opportunity to twice visit the major Harding Presidential sites on two road trips through Ohio, the second time delving into a couple of additional locations.
Monday, August 24, 1998 / Saturday, August 2, 2008 – Warren G. Harding birthplace – Harding was born in 1865 in a cottage farmahouse near Corsica, Ohio. The area is now known as Blooming Grove. Although the house was torn down in 1896, a plaque marks the area where the house used to stand. There is also a bed and breakfast on the property where Bob and I had hoped to stay during our 2008 road trip, but it was sold out at the time we were there.
Painting of the Harding birth home
The Ohio Historical Maker on a rainy day in 1998
At the location in 2008
Additional plaque marking the actual site of the home
Overview of the area and the house now standing on the property
Friday, August 21, 1998 / Saturday, August 2, 2008 – Warren G. Harding home – The Harding home in Marion, Ohio is certainly one of the most interesting – as well as historically accurate – of all Presidential homes. The Victorian style house was built in 1890 for Harding and his future wife Florence, to serve as their first residence as a married couple. Other than caretakers, no one else has ever lived in the residence. Mrs. Harding bequeathed it to the Harding Memorial Association after she passed away, not much more than a year after the President died. Nearly all of the furnishings found inside the home today were the belongings of President and Mrs. Harding.
Like an earlier Ohio President James Garfield, Warren G. Harding conducted his 1920 Presidential campaign from the front porch of this house. During my visit with Bob and Lisa in 1998, I gained a lot of notoriety for picking up a loose tile from that very front porch – and for a decade was falsely accused of pocketing the tile (wink wink). Upon the return of Bob and me in 2008, I proved to him once and for all that the tile was just where I had left it!
Harding at his home in Marion in the midst of his front porch campaign
The Ohio Historical Marker in 1998
The other identical side of it in 2008
Nice view of the house with Lisa on the stoop in 1998
Me and the house in 2008
Illustrating the loose tile safety hazard in ’98
Returning to the scene of the crime a decade later
Making sure the Harding sundial was functioning properly
Also like Garfield, Harding built a press house adjacent to the home, where reporters could stay while covering the Harding campaign. The house has been converted into a small museum of original Harding relics, as well as the gift shop (where incidentally I purchased a really cool book entitled simply The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents during my second visit).
The press house, now the ‘museum and office’
Saturday, August 2, 2008 – Harding Boyhood Home – Nestled in the small town of Caledonia, Ohio, about midway between his home in Canton and his birthplace in Blooming Grove sits the boyhood home of Warren G. Harding. The Harding family lived here from 1872-1881 and young Warren learned the fundamentals of the printing trade in a printing shop owned by his father. This inspired his later interest and career in journalism. The house is privately owned and not open to the public.
Outside the private boyhood home
Saturday, August 2, 2008 – The Marion County Historical Society’s Heritage Hall – Bob and I visited this odd museum mostly on a whim, not really expecting much. But we were pleased to find, amidst a rather odd mish-mash of seemingly random displays, a very large collection of Warren G. Harding memorabilia located in the basement. This included original letters, documents, furniture, and information about Harding’s job running the local newspaper, the Marion Daily Star. It’s always nice to be surprised with a place like this.
Marion is obviously proud of their heritage
Outside Heritage Hall, which I would consider the largest museum of Harding artifacts
Amidst the Harding displays
Getting ready to rest in an original piece of Harding furniture
The Warren G. Harding sites in Marion or bust!
Monday, June 14, 2010 – Harding Death Site – Not long after being the first President to visit Alaska, while on his “Voyage of Understanding” tour – where he hoped to meet ordinary people and explain his policies, Harding headed back south through San Francisco. He stayed at the Palace Hotel. A few days prior, he had developed what doctors thought might be food poisoning, and while at the Palace Hotel, he developed a respiratory illness and died unexpectedly in the Presidential Suite on August 2, 1923.
Bob and I visited the Palace Hotel while touring through San Francisco, California. We spent a good deal of time here, mostly trying find information as to where the President died in the building…and if there was any memorial whatsover to him. Sadly, there was not…and no real information. We knew that he died in room 8064, but this is no longer a valid room number. The best they could do was direct us to a glass display case that contained some press clippings following the President’s death. Quite ridiculous really.
The majestic Palace Hotel
President Harding died in here…somewhere
He didn’t die in this grand dining room, but chances are he ate here…or walked through it…or something
The Palace Hotel’s tribute to our late Commander in Chief: a pathetic scrapbook of Harding newspaper clippings found in a glass case in the hallway. I’m thinking that they could do better.
Friday, August 21, 1998 / Saturday, August 2, 2008 – Harding Memorial and Grave – The bodies of President and Mrs. Harding lied in the receiving vault of the Marion Cemetery until the Harding Memorial in Marion, Ohio was completed in 1927. It was dedicated by President Herbert Hoover in 1931. The Hardings had no legitimate children so they alone are buried in the sarcophogus. (Mrs. Harding had a child from a previous marriage and the President fathered an illegitimate child in 1919…but that’s another story).
Our first visit to the grave was the more eventful of the two. My future wife Lisa managed to squeeze through the metal gates protecting the tombs inside the memorial. This caused me to falsely remember that we could walk around inside the memorial, but alas, I couldn’t fit through the gates…not that I tried, mind you.
The Harding Memorial in 1998
Lisa and me at the Memorial
Look what that little minx got to do!
The official sign
At the Memorial in 2008
Close-up of the tombs
Me and Warren G.
Continue to the next President…
Return to Friday in Ohio 1998… (under construction)
Return to Monday in Ohio 1998… (under construction)
Return to Saturday in Ohio 2008…
Return to Monday in San Francisco 2010…
Your website is great stuff! You remind me of myself. I’ve been everywhere too; almost all the Civil War battlefields, Waterloo, James Dean’s death site, Nicole Brown Simpson’s death site, Winston Churchill’s grave, KISS concerts, you name it! -Only I’m a big Abbott and Costello fan.
Paul
December 15th, 2011
I have been enjoying your site! I looked and President Harding died in Room 8064 on the 8th floor but the room number has been changed to 888.
Tom
Johnstown, Ohio
Tom
February 17th, 2014