thumb|200px|The Mckinley Monument with Buffalo's City Hall in the background
thumb|200px|Engraving on the Obelisk
The McKinley Monument is a tall obelisk in Niagara Square, Buffalo, New York. Its location in front of Buffalo City Hall defines the center of Buffalo that all of the main roads converge on.
The monument was commissioned by the State of New York and dedicated September 6, 1907 to the memory of William McKinley, 25th President of the United States, who was fatally shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901. A full restoration had occurred in 2017 as the result of environmental conditions compromising the integrity of the monument.
Description
The McKinley Monument consists of an obelisk of Vermont and Italian marble with marble lions surrounding the base. It was designed by architects Carrère and Hastings, who had led the design of the Pan-American Exposition, with animal sculptures by Alexander Phimister Proctor that include both sleeping lions (symbols of strength) and turtles (emblems of eternal life).
Lion Sculpture
In 1905, a model of the four lions that would surround the base of the McKinley Monument was completed by Alexander Phimister Proctor, who was a very popular American sculptor at the time. Each one of the lions would be sculpted four times larger than an actual lion and made entirely out of white marble. These lions were modeled after Sultan, a veteran lion from the Bronx Zoological Park and weigh approximately 12 tons and are 12 feet long (3.7m).
The combination of traditional architecture (obelisk) and wild animals was relatively new to American art, but was expressed within this monument.
Inscriptions
At the base of the column, the following inscriptions are found:<blockquote>"This shaft was erected by the State of New York to honor the memory of William McKinley, twenty-fifth President of the United states of America."
"William McKinley was born at Niles, Ohio, January 29, 1843." Specifically the troops of two battalions of the Twelfth United States Infantry, the Sixty Fifth Regiment, the National Guard of New York, and Thirteenth Royal Canadian Regiment participated in the dedication.
Poet Carl Sandburg wrote a poem about the monument called Slants at Buffalo, New York, beginning: "A forefinger of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky. / It says: This way! this way!"