“Power is like being a lady… if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t. ~ Margaret Thatcher
My fellow Americans…
I went to the National Presidential Wax Museum in Keystone this week. Reasons for going there: 1) The wax museum is owned by the same company that owns the KOA that we live and work at so it was free. 2.) I wanted to keep up with the presidential theme seen in recent posts. 3) On this 96° day I knew they would be keeping our wax-made commanders-in-chief cool and comfy so it was a nice way to beat the heat.
Again, I got lucky and had the whole place to myself. Probably because I went there at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning. It’s all about timing.
This museum, as you will see, is filled with all of the American presidents but also with other historical figures from America’s past. You will also see tableaus depicting great moments in history with other world leaders. The museum mixes them up, probably for limited spatial reasons but I will try to show these exhibits, with all of their pageantry, in somewhat of a chronological order…
So step across this rug and into history…
George Washington, Betsy Ross, Martha WashingtonBenjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson Abigail Adams, James Monroe, Elizabeth Monroe, Henry Clay, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Martin Van Buren, Anjelica Van Buren, Daniel Webster, John Quincy AdamsMillard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Alan Arthur, John TylerIn December 1814, a concerned Rachel Jackson watches pirate Jean Laffite make a deal with General Jackson to defeat the British at New Orleans in return for amnesty. The famous Lincoln v. Douglas debates over slavery.General Ulysses S. Grant accepts the surrender of Confederate forces from General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865.Major Marcus A. Reno, General Alfred Howe Terry, Colonel George Armstrong Custer and Captain Fredrick W. Benteen leave their command post and head for the Little Big Horn River. Custer, whom the Indians called “Yellow Hair,” will be the only one who will not return.Sioux Indian Chiefs: Gall, Crazy Horse, Rain-in-the-Face, and Sitting Bull hold a council of war to meet Colonel Custer’s “Long Knives” at the Little Big Horn.
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, and Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph, demonstrate their amazing new inventions to President Hayes in the White House in 1877. Hayes was the first President to have a telephone installed in the White House.
Bachelor President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the Blue Room of the White House on June 2, 1886 to become the first President married in office. She is 22 and he is 49.William Henry HarrisonJames Knox PolkZachary TaylorFranklin PierceJames Buchanan James A. Garfield Benjamin HarrisonWilliam McKinleyWarren G. HardingHerbert HooverTeddy Roosevelt Howard TaftOn August 10, 1927, just eight days after his famous “I Do Not Choose to Run” speech given while on vacation in South Dakota, President Calvin Coolidge dedicates Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Seated on the platform behind him are Sęnator Peter Norbeck, Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, and John Boland.Prime Ministers David Lloyd-George of Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, and Georges Clemenceau of France meet with President Woodrow Wilson of the United States in France on January 18, 1919. At the Peace Conference in Versailles, Wilson insisted on creation of a league of nations as a way of preventing future wars.At the February 1945 Yalta Conference British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin came together to plan for a postwar future for a Europe in ruins and try to hasten an end to the conflict in the Pacific. Stalin agreed to enter the war to help defeat Imperial Japan. Roosevelt and Churchill allowed for Soviet influence over lands Russia lost to Japan decades earlier. Initially hailed as a major success, the conference later came to be viewed by some as the moment that the United States ceded too much influence to the Soviets and the trigger for the Cold War.On June 22, 1945, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius signs the United Nations Charter while President Truman, Ralph Bunche, and Eleanor Roosevelt look on.Popular Kansas farm boy, West Point cadet, and Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II. Two terms in office led General Eisenhower to conclude that the presidency is the loneliest job in the nation.President Kennedy tries to work while his son John-John plays hide and seek under the president’s desk in the Oval Office.At Love Field in Dallas, Lyndon Johnson stands with his wife and stunned Jackie Kennedy in the cabin of Air Force One. He is sworn in as 36th President of the United States by Judge Sarah Hughes, just hours after the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963.President Nixon welcomes back astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet after their historic moon landing.After the resignation of Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford was nominated for the office of Vice President by President Nixon and approved by Congress under the 25th Amendment on December 6, 1973. On August 9, 1974, after the resignation of Richard Nixon, he was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Warren Burger and became the 38th President of the United States.The famous 1986 arms reduction summit between Soviet President Mikhial Gorbachev and American President Ronald Reagan during the height of the Cold War.Texas oil man-turned-President George H. W. Bush with Georgia peanut farmer-turned-President Jimmy Carter.Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law graduate President William Jefferson Clinton.Voting booths and “butterfly” ballots were used in Florida to collect votes for the now famous 2000 Presidential Election between candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore.Not since John Quincy Adams has anyone followed his father’s footsteps to the Oval Office. In an extraordinary election that was too close to call, George W. Bush became the first president of the twenty-first century. Here he shows leadership during the challenging time following the terrible events of September 11, 2001.Harvard Law graduate and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Hussein Obama, would become the first African-American President in U. S. history.Donald TrumpJoe Biden, a Syracuse University College of Law, who as President oversaw the American Rescue Plan Act in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and recession.
I hope you enjoyed this tour and I hope you vote in November. 🇺🇸
American Gam 
Fascinating to this retired history, teacher, and former neighbor! Thank you, Bill. I really enjoyed this one.Sent from my iPhoneOn Jul 26, 2026,
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