Dozens of former leaders of the United States have been abandoned and left to slowly deteriorate in a farm discovered by an urban explorer in rural Virginia.
Picture Mount Rushmore, but smaller, more spread out and with a lot more presidents, and you might just be able to imagine Presidents Park in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Basically, Presidents Park, which opened in 2004, was a sculpture park packed full of stone busts, each depicting a former President of the United States. It paid tribute to the first 43 presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush, but closed its doors in 2010 due to a lack of visitors.
Following the closure, all 43 statues were moved to a farm in rural Virginia, where they were pictured twelve years later by urban explorer Leland Kent, who goes by the handle Abandoned Southeast online.
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Kent shared close-up images and even a video of the various busts, explaining the park cost $10 million to create after being thought up by local landowner Everette 'Haley' Newman and Houston sculptor David Adickes, who said he was inspired to create the statues after seeing Mount Rushmore.
The explorer said: 'The park was an open-air museum where visitors could walk among the 18-foot-tall president head statues.
'The busts were built of concrete and showcased the first 43 presidents of the United States, from Washington to George W. Bush... When the park went into foreclosure, instead of destroying the busts, all 43 statues were moved to a 400-acre farm in rural Virginia.'
Kent's images from the farm show a big chunk missing out of Abraham Lincoln's head as a result of his bust being damaged, while others appear to have cracks creeping over their necks and faces.
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The creepy scenes have been met with intrigue online, where one commenter described the scene as 'kinda apocalyptic.'
Another wrote: 'wow I'd like to go see this stuff'
The busts each stand 18-to-20-foot tall, according to The Smithsonian, though at Presidents Park they were largely hidden behind a motel, which may have contributed to the demise of the park.
Before the land was auctioned off, Newman asked Howard Hankins, who helped build the park, to destroy the busts. Instead, Hankins offered to move the heads to his 400-acre farm ten miles away, thus beginning the process of moving the heavy heads to their current resting place.
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The process took a week to complete, while the cost of moving the heads, which weighed between 11,000 and 20,000 pounds, is thought to have cost around $50,000.
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