The memorial was suggested days after McKinley's assassination, and the Columbus Dispatch newspaper company took to raising the funds to create the memorial. The work was sculpted by Hermon Atkins MacNeil with the assistance of his wife Carol Brooks MacNeil, at a cost of $75,000. It was commissioned in 1903, and installed by Lord and Hewlett. The monument was dedicated on September 6, 1906, the fifth anniversary of McKinley's assassination, at a ceremony attended by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt (McKinley's vice-president and successor as president)."Columbus, Ohio: 1898-1950 in Vintage Postcards", Richard E. Barrett, p.11 Its dedication ceremony attracted about 50,000 people, some of whom were injured when the crowd attempted to grab pieces of ribbon and bunting as souvenirs. The memorial was temporarily removed in the 1960s to allow the installation of an underground parking garage beneath the west lawn of the Ohio Statehouse.
