Admission will be free at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda Monday for Presidents Day, while the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley will mark the holiday with a free set of family-oriented activities.
The Nixon Library will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the first 250 guests receiving a free slice of cherry pie.
Actors portraying three of the presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore — Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington — will be available for pictures throughout the day and will speak in the museum’s full-scale replica of the White House’s East Room at 11:30 a.m.
The museum’s galleries are closed to the public as they undergo a major renovation. Visitors are able to tour Nixon’s birthplace, built by his father Francis from a catalogue’s mail order home building kit, the graves of Nixon and his wife Pat, a helicopter used by presidents from John F. Kennedy to Gerald R. Ford, the grounds’ gardens and East Room.
Influential Democratic campaign consultant Douglas E. Schoen, who is also a Fox News Channel contributor, will discuss and sign copies of his new book, “The Nixon Effect: How Richard Nixon’s Presidency Fundamentally Changed American Politics” in the East Room at 2 p.m.
“The Nixon Effect” argues that Nixon is the key political figure in post-World War II America in multiple ways, with a legacy including a generational shift in the ideological orientations of both the Republican and Democratic parties; hardening partisan polarization in Washington; the evolution of politics as war, where ideological opponents are seen as evil or unpatriotic; and various tactics that have shaped political communications and strategy ever since.
More information on the Nixon Library is available by calling (714) 993- 5075 or online at nixonfoundation.org or nixonlibrary.gov.
The Reagan Library will conduct its 23rd annual Presidents Day Celebration from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., including crafts, musical entertainment, storytelling and presidential and first lady lookalikes.
Admission is free to the celebration, with food available for purchase.
The library will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with its regular admission prices — $16 for adults, $9 for children ages 11 to 17 years old, $6 for children ages 3 to 10, and $13 for ages 62 and older. Children 2 and under are admitted free.
More information on the Reagan Library is available by calling (805) 522- 2977 or online at reaganfoundation.org.
Although commonly known as Presidents Day, the Monday holiday is still legally Washington’s Birthday.
The holiday was shifted from Feb. 22 to the third Monday in February 1971 under the terms of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968. Because the holiday falls between Feb. 15 and 21 it can never fall on the actual anniversary of Washington’s birth in 1732.
The term Presidents Day began being popularized in the 1980s, when retailers combined sales formerly held in conjunction with Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays.
Lincoln’s birthday has never been a federal holiday.
