Harding Tomb
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Harding Tomb
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Front (northern side) of the Harding Tomb
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| Location | Marion Cemetery, Marion, Ohio |
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| Coordinates | 40°34′23″N 83°7′23″W / 40.57306°N 83.12306°WCoordinates: 40°34′23″N 83°7′23″W / 40.57306°N 83.12306°W |
| Area | 2 acres (0.81 ha) |
| Built | 1926 |
| Architect | Henry Hornbostel |
| NRHP Reference # | 76001485 |
| Added to NRHP | June 16, 1976 |
The Harding Tomb, also known as the Harding Memorial, is the burial location of the 29th President of the United States, Warren G. Harding and First Lady Florence Kling Harding. It is located in Marion, Ohio at the southeast corner of Vernon Heights Boulevard and Delaware Avenue, just south of Marion Cemetery.
Shortly after the country’s 29th President died in office, The Harding Memorial Association formed to raise money for a memorial site in honor of the late president. The association ultimately received $978,000 in donations from more than one million people across the country, as well as contributions from several European nations. Maybe most notably among the list of contributors from the United States were an estimated 200,000 school children, who donated pennies towards the memorial.
Construction began in 1926 and finished in the early winter of 1927. It is designed in the style of a circular Greek temple with Doric order marble columns. The columns are built of Georgia white marble and are 28 feet (8.5 m) high and 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter at the base. Designed by Henry Hornbostel, Eric Fisher Wood and Edward Mellon, the winners of a 1925 national design competition, the structure is 103 feet (31 m) in diameter and 53 feet (16 m) in height.
The structure is unroofed (peribolus), in the style of some Greek temples in which the center (Hypaethros) was open to the sky and without a roof (medium autem sub diva est sine tecto). The open design honors the Hardings' wishes that they be buried outside, and is covered in ivy and other plantings.
At their deaths, the bodies of the Hardings were entombed in the Marion Cemetery Receiving Vault. Once the Harding Memorial was completed in 1927, the bodies were reinterred in the Memorial's sarcophagus and it was sealed. Because Harding's reputation was damaged by personal controversies and presidential scandals, the Harding Memorial was not officially dedicated until 1931 when President Herbert Hoover presided.
On June 16, 1931, President Herbert Hoover gave a speech at the official dedication ceremony of the Warren G. Harding memorial. The following are excerpts from Hoover's eulogy:
Warren G. Harding came from the people. Born just at the close of the Civil War, it became his responsibility to lead the Republic in a period of reconstruction from another great war in which our democracy had again demonstrated its unalterable resolve to withstand encroachment upon its independence and to deserve the respect of the world. We cannot too often emphasize the difficulties to accomplishment which Warren Harding met in his task....
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