Take a trip to Ohio to learn about William McKinley, Trump's much-admired Gilded Age president

CANTON, Ohio (AP) — If you've been intrigued by President Donald Trump's praise of his long-ago White House predecessor William McKinley and yearn to know more, it's time you head to Ohio.

America's 25th president was born and is buried in the Buckeye State, where museums and monuments to him abound. Websites promoting the state's McKinley attractions have seen a surge in page views since Trump began highlighting McKinley's Gilded Age presidency, which ran from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. Officials hope a bump in summer tourism will follow.

“I don’t think there has been as much interest in William McKinley in at least a century, in terms of kind of the public consciousness,” said Kevin Kern, an associate professor of history at the University of Akron. The last time was in 1928, when McKinley's face was printed on the $500 bill.

While Trump has attached himself to McKinley, Kern says the two Republicans' political positions are, in many respects, “really apples and oranges.”

In McKinley’s day, the United States was just becoming the world’s foremost manufacturing power. Tariffs were viewed as a way to protect that momentum. Today, the economy is global.

Kern also noted that Republicans took huge losses in the 1890 election after the imposition of the McKinley Tariff, and that McKinley appeared to change his tune on tariffs in a speech delivered the day before he was assassinated in 1901.

Within an easy drive of Cleveland, you can find a host of sites for learning more about McKinley's politics and personal life. Here's a closer look:

McKinley was born in 1843 in Niles, a Youngstown suburb about 70 miles (112.65 kilometers) east of Cleveland. Here, you'll find the National McKinley Birthplace Memorial, a classical Greek marble monument that sits on the site of McKinley's former one-room schoolhouse. A McKinley statue stands at the center of the well-manicured Court of Honor, which is flanked by a small museum and the community's library. The McKinley birthplace home and research center sits nearby.

Canton is perhaps best known for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, The city, about 60 miles (96.56 kilometers) from either Cleveland or Niles, is where the kindly and mild-mannered McKinley spent most of his adult life. A young McKinley settled here after serving in the Civil War, began his law career and married Ida Saxton McKinley.

The McKinley Presidential Library and Museum is a great place to dig into the shared policy goals — especially tariffs and territorial expansion — that attract Trump to McKinley.

An animatronic William and Ida McKinley greet visitors to the museum's McKinley Gallery, which features interactive opportunities as well as historical furnishings, clothing, jewelry and campaign memorabilia. The building also houses a presidential archive and a science center complete with dinosaurs and a planetarium. The site's dominant feature, however, is the imposing McKinley Monument, which looms on a hill atop 108 stone steps. It houses the mausoleum where the McKinleys and their two young daughters are buried.

More McKinley memorabilia is on display at the Canton Classic Car Museum.

The residents of Arcata, California, were not so enamored of McKinley's imperialist legacy.

In 2018, amid national soul-searching over historical monuments, the liberal college town decided to remove an 8-foot sculpture of McKinley, the annexation treaty for Hawaii in his hand, from their town square. Over a century old, the statue had been moved to Arcata from San Francisco, where it was toppled in the 1906 earthquake.

It now stands at the stately Stark County Courthouse in downtown Canton, where McKinley worked as a county prosecutor before being elected a congressman and Ohio governor. It was placed there in 2023 after being bought back from Arcata by a Canton foundation and restored.

A three-block walk from the courthouse is the Saxton-McKinley House, part of the National First Ladies Historic Site operated in partnership with the National Park Service. Originally Ida's home, the elegant Victorian mansion was the couple's residence at different times during their marriage. It's not the house from which McKinley conducted his fabled “front porch campaign” of 1896; that was demolished in the 1930s.

A replica of the porch and the actual chair McKinley sat in can be found at the McKinley museum, however, and a tabletop replica of his “campaign house” is on view at the Stark County District Library, which now sits on the site.

If you'd like to see the porch where another Ohio president carried out his front porch campaign, try the James A. Garfield Historic Site in Mentor, about 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) northwest of Cleveland.

The granddaughter of John Saxton, a city pioneer and founder of the Canton Repository newspaper, Ida Saxton attended Canton's First Presbyterian Church, a few blocks from their home. Now known as Christ Presbyterian Church, this is where the McKinleys were married in 1871, the “new” stone building's tower yet uncompleted. William's church was the nearby Crossroads United Methodist. Ida had a series of stained glass panels depicting the phases of her husband's life installed there after this death.

If you're willing to travel a bit farther afield, several other sites could add to your McKinley experience. '

First is the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums, located about 85 miles (136.79 kilometers) west of Cleveland in Fremont. Known as Spiegel Grove, the site established in 1916 is home of the nation's first presidential library. Its museum explores Hayes’ service in the Civil War, when he was McKinley’s commander.

In Columbus, about 150 miles (241.40 kilometers) southwest of Cleveland, a McKinley statue in front of the Ohio Statehouse faces west. This was where McKinley, then governor, would stand to doff his hat to Ida as she looked out the window of their apartment at the Neil House. The legendary hotel was torn down in 1980 to make way for the Huntington Center now dominating that block.

Rounding out the timeline of McKinley's life, a 96-foot tall obelisk memorializing him sits on Niagara Square in Buffalo, New York. He was assassinated by an anarchist while appearing at the Pan-American Exposition there in 1901.

This story has been corrected to say Fremont, Ohio, is west of Cleveland

Animatronics of former President William McKinley and former First Lady Ida McKinley inside the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)

FILE - This drawing shows Major William McKinley, the presidential nominee for the Republican Party, making an elaborate front-porch campaign speech at his home in Canton, Ohio in 1896. (AP Photo/File)

An animatronic of former President William McKinley inside the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)

Animatronics of former President William McKinley and former First Lady Ida McKinley inside the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)

The Saxton-McKinley House, part of the National First Ladies Historic Site on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)

A plaque on the Saxton-McKinley House, part of the National First Ladies Historic Site on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)

Visitors walk up and down the steps of the William McKinley Memorial on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)

FILE - President William Mckinley, left, sits with his cabinet during a meeting in the White House in this photo dated 1898. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Roman Feemster, 24, reads the inscription below the bronze statue of President McKinley on the second tier from the bottom of the steps McKinley National Memorial and Museum, Oct. 24, 2003 in Canton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)

FILE - The McKinley National Memorial in Canton, Ohio is pictured, June 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Julie Smyth. File)

FILE - The William McKinley Monument is silhouetted in front of the west side of the Ohio Statehouse, April 15, 2024, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - Gov. William McKinley of Ohio makes a speech during the U.S. presidential campaign in 1896. McKinley became the 25th president in 1897. (AP Photo)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jimmy Butler and Stephen Curry threw their arms around each other and embraced.

Playoff Jimmy in all his brilliance on the big stage took all the pressure off Curry, and now they're taking the Golden State Warriors to the playoffs.

“I know I want to win a championship so he needs, his what, this would be No. 5?” Butler said.

Butler had 38 points, seven rebounds and six assists creating opportunities on both ends at every chance, Curry scored 37, and the Warriors earned the seventh seed in the Western Conference by beating the Memphis Grizzlies 121-116 on Tuesday night in the Play-In Tournament.

Curry knocked down a baseline 3-pointer with 1:50 to go and one from the left wing with a minute on the clock then converted four free throws in the closing five seconds.

Golden State is now headed for a best-of-seven first-round series with the Rockets beginning with Game 1 on Sunday at Houston.

“It took 83 games but we’re right where we want to be, which is back in the playoffs and we've got a chance,” coach Steve Kerr said.

After a pair of free throws by Curry with 5.4 seconds left, the Grizzlies had one last chance — but Santi Aldama couldn’t inbound the ball before a five-second violation.

Desmond Bane scored 30 points and Ja Morant 22 for Memphis, which will head home to play Friday against the winner of the Mavericks-Kings matchup on Wednesday night in Sacramento to determine the eighth playoff spot.

With the Grizzlies on a roll midway through the third, Butler grabbed momentum back with a steal and dunk. He shot 12 for 20 in a second straight 30-point performance and his highest scoring game since joining the Warriors at the trade deadline. He made 12 of 18 free throws — having been 63 of 68 from the line over the previous eight games in April.

Morant went down hard rolling his right ankle when he stepped on Buddy Hield’s foot and was fouled by Quinten Post with 4:25 remaining in the third but got up and finished the three-point play to pull the Grizzlies within 82-81.

Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 18 points, while Zach Edey contributed 14 points, 17 rebounds and hit two free throws with 14.3 seconds left.

Curry had eight rebounds, four assists and shot 9 for 22 while regularly swarmed by Scotty Pippen Jr. before he fouled out late.

Curry had lit up the Grizzlies for 52 points on their home floor in a 134-125 win on April 1, and the Grizzlies made him a top priority this time — so Butler took charge.

“He's different,” Draymond Green said.

He led four straight scoring possessions to put the Warriors up 31-18 late in the first quarter — assisting on Gary Payton II’s cutting dunk, dishing to Post for a 3 and making a 3-point shot and three-point play himself. Butler showed no signs of being affected by a tender left quadriceps muscle after he took a knee from Kawhi Leonard on Sunday.

The Warriors hoped to avoid this extra game, but lost in overtime to the Clippers in the regular-season finale on Sunday for their third home defeat over the final week.

Curry, Green and the Warriors had been 0-3 in play-in games during appearances in 2021 and last year. The Grizzlies eliminated them at Chase Center with a 117-112 overtime victory in ’21.

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Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, bottom, reacts after hitting the floor during the second half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game against the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Golden State Warriors' Jimmy Butler, back, and Draymond Green (23) steal the ball from Memphis Grizzlies' Scotty Pippen Jr. (1) in the first half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

State Warriors' Moses Moody, left, and Jimmy Butler III (10) defend against Memphis Grizzlies' Ja Morant (12) during the first half of during an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, middle left, is defended by Memphis Grizzlies guard Scotty Pippen Jr. during the second half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Memphis Grizzlies guard Scotty Pippen Jr. (1) shoots against Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green during the second half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Golden State Warriors' Gary Payton II, right, forces a jump ball against Memphis Grizzlies' Jaren Jackson Jr., center, during the first half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry, back, pokes the ball away from Memphis Grizzlies' Scotty Pippen Jr. (1) in the first half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry (30) shoots a 3-point shot as Memphis Grizzlies' Scotty Pippen Jr. (1) fouls him in the first half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Golden State Warriors' Jimmy Butler III (10) celebrates a made basket and foul against the Memphis Grizzlies during the the first half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Golden State Warriors forward Jimmy Butler III, left, celebrates with guard Stephen Curry after an NBA play-in tournament basketball game against the Memphis Grizzlies in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)