National Historic Landmark Site Tour

These bronze markers were installed in 2021 to honor the nine students wounded on May 4, 1970. Great effort was put into verifying their proper locations before they were installed. Each marker faces the direction where the National Guard shot from and includes the distance the wounded students were from the Guard. The markers were unveiled for the 51st May 4 commemoration.

Learn more about the markers

The 15-foot metal sculpture was created by artist Don Drumm in 1967. Kent State  commissioned Drumm to create a sculpture that would bring character to the exterior of Taylor Hall, the newly built journalism and architecture building. During the May 4, 1970 shooting, the sculpture, made of half-inch thick corten steel plates, was shot by a National Guardsman's M1 rifle. The visible bullet hole serves as one of the first memorials to the tragedy on campus. Each spring, it is often decorated by students and May 4 community members with flowers and chalk to memorialize May 4.

Visitors are welcome to touch the sculpture, including the bullet hole, but please refrain from climbing on it.

Learn more about Solar Totem #1

Until these markers were installed in 1999, cars were allowed to park in the spots where Allison Krause, Jeffery Miller, William Schroeder, and Sandy Scheuer were shot in the Prentice Hall parking lot. As a result of a request from the May 4 Task Force student organization, and the families of the fallen students, the university authorized the installation of the lighted pillars and granite nameplates to block off the four spaces.

Students and community members stand vigil in the parking spots annually between the candlelight vigil march and commemoration. It is a tradition for visitors and passersby to leave a stone or trinket on top of the pillars. This connects to the Jewish tradition of leaving stones on graves as an act of remembrance. 

On the first anniversary of May 4, a small group of students dedicated a cast aluminum plaque to the memory of Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. This marker, which was financed by and cast under the direction of B'nai B'rith Hillel, an organization for fostering Jewish life and education on college campuses, lay unanchored at the foot of a tree in the Prentice Hall parking lot until it disappeared on the evening of May 3, 1974.

In February 1975, a faculty committee collected contributions for a new marker which was dedicated on May 3, 1975. This granite stone continues to serve as a focal point of May 4 memorial observances on the Kent campus. Every year on the evening of May 3, it marks the end of the candlelight procession that weaves its way around the campus starting at the Victory Bell and ending at this marker where participants leave the remains of their lit candles in remembrance.

In 1989, 58,175 daffodil bulbs were planted as a living art installation - one flower for each U.S. service member killed in Vietnam. The work was designed by Kent State Professor Emeritus Brinsley Tyrrell as a way to honor both the fallen anti-war protestors and Vietnam War soldiers. In the spring months, thousands of yellow daffodil bulbs continue to bloom on this hill.

Learn more about Daffodil Hill

Obtained from the Erie railroad and installed in the early 1950s by the Kent State Alpha Phi Omega chapter, the Victory Bell is rung by sports teams after athletic victories. Its location on the Commons was intentional, as it was the center of campus when it was installed. In the 1960s and 1970s the Victory Bell was used as a meeting place for student activist groups and protestors. It is an identifiable landmark in many photos taken on May 4, 1970. 

Located on the northwest corner of the Prentice Hall parking lot, this historical marker, installed in 2006, gives visitors a concise summary of the events of May 4.

“In 1968, Richard Nixon won the presidency partly based on a campaign promise to end the Vietnam War. Though the war seemed to be winding down, on April 30, 1970, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia, triggering protests across college campuses. On Friday, May 1, an anti-war rally was held on the Commons at Kent State University. Protesters called for another rally to be held on Monday, May 4. Disturbances in downtown Kent that night caused city officials to ask Governor James Rhodes to send the Ohio National Guard to maintain order. Troops put on alert Saturday afternoon were called to campus Saturday evening after an ROTC building was set on fire. Sunday morning in a press conference that was also broadcast to the troops on campus, Rhodes vowed to “eradicate the problem “of protests at Kent State.

On May 4, 1970, Kent State students protested on the Commons against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and the presence of the Ohio National Guard called to campus to quell demonstrations. Guardsman advanced, driving students past Taylor Hall. A small group of protesters taunted the Guard from the Prentice Hall parking lot. The Guard marched back to the Pagoda, where members of Company A, 145th infantry, and Troop G, 107th Armored Cavalry, turned and fired 61 - 67 shots during thirteen seconds. Four students were killed – Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Nine students were wounded. – Alan Canfora, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Dean Kahler, Joseph Lewis, D. Scott MacKenzie, James Russell, Robert Stamps, and Douglas Wrentmore. Those shot were 20 to 245 yards away from the Guard. The Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest concluded that the shots were “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable."

It takes about 30 minutes and half a mile of walking to see all 7 panels. The trail includes a few inclines. 

Each of these linked videos corresponds to one of the seven outdoor exhibit panels located around the national Historic Landmark Site:

Waypoint 1
Waypoint 2
Waypoint 3
Waypoint 4
Waypoint 5
Waypoint 6
Waypoint 7

The Site of the Shooting of Kent State students, May 4, 1970 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, and received the distinction of a National Historic Landmark Site in 2016. The site is almost 18 acres of the campus, and includes the Commons, Blanket Hill, Taylor Hall, the Prentice Hall parking lot, and where the practice field once was. 

"The May 4, 1970, Kent State University shootings site possesses the national significance as a place to understand the student protest movement against the Vietnam War. A volley fired by Ohio National Guard during a protest on the campus took the lives of Allison Krause, Jeffery Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder, with none other Kent State students sustaining gunshot wounds. Twenty years later in May 1990 the governor of Ohio lamented how "a distant war in the name of democracy had invaded so close to home as to threaten democracy." The deaths of four Kent State students are testament to the importance of democratic dialogue over armed conflict." - National Parks Service, United States Department of the Interior

The memorial came about due to efforts spearheaded by the May 4 Task Force, a student-led organization working to keep the memory of May 4 alive. In 1985, a university-led design competition was held for the memorial, and it was completed and dedicated on the 20th anniversary of the shooting, in May 1990. 

When the university announced the plan to construct a permanent memorial for May 4, there were contesting opinions surrounding the idea. The American Legion rallied against the proposed memorial, causing Kent State to refrain from pursuing a full fundraising campaign and leading to a scaled down final design.

The wrap wall of the memorial ends in a fractured stone intentionally- symbolic of disruption and conflict, while the four pylons stand in memory of the four students killed. The words “Inquire, Learn, Reflect” are engraved on the entrance to the plaza, encouraging visitors to contemplate the impact of the May 4, 1970 tragedy. The names of the four fallen students and nine injured students are on an adjacent ground plaque on the north side of the memorial.

Visitors are welcome to sit on the memorial’s granite benches and to follow along the black discs in the ground leading to the large pylons.

Learn more about the memorial

Explore an exhibit about the creation of May 4 memorials in the PDF below: