The marble lions of the McKinley Monument

The McKinley Monument is a 96-foot tall obelisk in Niagara Square, Buffalo, New York. Located in front of Buffalo City Hall, its position defines the center of the city where main roads converge. The monument was commissioned by the State of New York and dedicated on September 6, 1907, to the memory of William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States. He was fatally shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901. Architect Daniel H. Burnham influenced the design by advising that an obelisk would best convey the significance of the monument, and the project was overseen by a commission including Edward Hubert Butler Sr. and George E. Matthews.

The monument consists of an obelisk made of Vermont and Italian marble with marble lions surrounding the base. The base is 7 feet square and 24 feet high, while the obelisk extends 69 feet above it. The sculpture includes sleeping lions - symbols of strength - and turtles - emblems of eternal life - designed by Alexander Phimister Proctor. Proctor modeled the lions after Sultan, a veteran lion from the Bronx Zoological Park; each marble lion weighs approximately 12 tons and is 12 feet long.

Inscriptions at the base provide details on McKinley's life, including his birth in Niles, Ohio, and his service in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers. A full restoration occurred in 2017 by the Flynn Battaglia Company, which replaced damaged marble blocks with new stone from the same Vermont quarry. The original project was funded by approximately $100,000 appropriated by the state, with an additional $40,000 expended on repairs to the surrounding neighborhoods.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons