Hours

The James A. Garfield Memorial is currently closed for the season and will reopen in spring 2025. Expert guides will educate you on the beauty and significance of this landmark, and the everlasting legacy of our 20th President. Admission is free.

U.S. President James Garfield died on September 19, 1881. Cleveland was chosen as the President's place of entombment, and after lying state in the rotunda of the Capitol for two days, Garfield's casket was taken to Lake View Cemetery by special train. Countless grieving citizens viewed the casket en route from the Capitol to Cleveland. 

The casket was sealed in a temporary crypt while the permanent monument was constructed. Situated on a commanding hill in Lake View Cemetery, the monument was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1890.

The monument features a circular tower 50 feet in diameter and 180 feet high, built of native Ohio sandstone on a broad stone terrace. Around the exterior are five panels in bas-relief depicting Garfield's life and death. These panels include more than 100 figures, all of them life-size.

Inside the monument is Memorial Hall, a luminous space that features a sculpture of Garfield, red granite columns, a golden mosaic dome, and stained glass windows. In the crypt directly below the Memorial Hall are the bronze caskets of Garfield and his wife, Lucretia Garfield.

Learn about restoration efforts for the Garfield Monument and Memorial here.

An inscribed urn holding the ashes of the President's daughter, Mary Garfield Stanley-Brown, and the urn of her husband, Joseph Stanley Brown, are also interred in the crypt. A stairway leads to a balcony with a view of Lake Erie, the Cleveland skyline, and 40 miles of the Lake Erie shoreline. The James A. Garfield Memorial was placed on the National Register of Historic places on April 11, 1973.