William McKinley statue, Bronze statue in Canton, Ohio

The William McKinley statue is an 8.5-foot bronze figure of the president, sculpted by Haig Patigian and unveiled in Arcata's central plaza in 1906. It stood at the middle of the Arcata Plaza until February 28, 2019, when it was removed for relocation to Canton, Ohio.

George Zehndner, an 81-year-old Forty-Niner, met William McKinley in 1901 and commissioned the bronze after the president's assassination, paying $15,000. Sculptor Haig Patigian cast it in San Francisco, where the 1906 earthquake toppled it in a foundry; workers hauled it onto a truck before the flames reached it. Zehndner gave it to Arcata on July 4, 1906, before 2,000 visitors. The city removed it from the plaza on February 28, 2019, and it was unveiled in Canton, Ohio, on October 21, 2023.

The bronze stood at the center of the Arcata Plaza from 1906 until 28 February 2019, when it was taken down and later moved to Canton, Ohio. A nearby plaque using the phrase "time of Indian troubles" was removed in 2018, and residents called for a new marker about the area's Indigenous inhabitants and pre-colonial history.

The statue no longer stands in the Arcata Plaza: it was removed on February 28, 2019, and unveiled at the Stark County courthouse in Canton, Ohio, on October 21, 2023. In Arcata, look for the plaza itself, where a plaque referring to a "time of Indian troubles" was also taken down in 2018.

The statue fell during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and was found lying in a foundry south of Market Street. Patigian feared it would melt but could not move it; a week later he was told it had been destroyed. In fact a machine-shop employee and passersby had hauled it onto a truck, and it reached Eureka by steamboat in May 1906.