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(NEXSTAR) – For decades, Americans have gathered at the Capitol Building in Washington DC to watch the inauguration of the incoming president, but there are some notable exceptions.
While the first and second inaugurations of President George Washington were held outside Washington DC, they were still held in the nation’s capital, which was in New York City in 1789, and for Washington’s second inauguration in 1793 in Philadelphia.
The initiation ceremony would move to Washington DC for Thomas Jefferson’s 1801 oath of office, according to the National Library of Congress, but circumstances in subsequent years would force the inauguration to take place on an airplane, on a farm and in a personal residence.
Chester A. Arthur (1881)
After just 200 days in office — a presidency historians called “influential”, whose card – an “embittered lawyer” passed for a consular post who shot President James A. Garfield at a railroad station in Washington, DC.
Garfield would not survive his injuries, making his vice president, Chester A. Arthur, head of state.
On September 20, 1881, then Vice President Arthur took the oath of office at his home in New York City, with New York Supreme Court Justice John R. Brady presiding over the case, according to official accounts.
The next day, he took his islandah againthis time before a group of invited guests inside the vice president’s room at the US Capitol, according to UC Santa Barbara’s “The American Presidency Project.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1901)
The assassination of President William McKinley led to a hastily arranged inauguration ceremony at a home in Buffalo, New Yorkaccording to the National Park Service.
McKinley was shot twice at point blank range while attending the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, according to White House historians. He would die eight days later.
His vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, had been vacationing in New York’s Adirondack Mountains when he received news that McKinley was seriously wounded. Roosevelt rushed to Buffalo, but by the time he arrived, McKinley was dead.
Using a borrowed coat, pants, vest, tie and leather shoes, Roosevelt decided to take the oath of office immediately so the country would not experience a leadership gap, according to the Park Service.
“I was so shocked at the terrible news brought to me last night and at the calamity it brought upon the country, as well as at the personal grief I feel that I have not had time to think of plans for the future conduct of the office which has come upon me so suddenly and sadly,” Roosevelt said, according to a newspaper account from The Richmond Dispatch.
The impromptu dedication ceremony was held in the library of the home of Roosevelt’s friend, Ansley Wilcox. The home is now open to the public as the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site.
Calvin Coolidge (1923)
The death of a sitting president brought another unorthodox inauguration—this time in 1923, when Calvin Coolidge was sworn in using a family Bible at the Vermont farm in Plymouth Notch where he grew up.
Coolidge was inaugurated into office by President Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack in 1923 while in San Francisco, according to White House historians.
After learning at At 2:30 a.m. on August 3, 1923, that he was president, Coolidge’s father, a notary public, had his son place his hand on the family Bible and take the oath of office.
President Coolidge’s birthplace and childhood home has since been preserved as a Vermont State Historic Site.
Lyndon Johnson (1963)
About two hours after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Lyndon Johnson made history by becoming the only president to be inaugurated on an airplane.
Johnson took the oath of office in the forward cabin of Air Force One in Dallas, according to a The Library of Congress blog post. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath, the first time a woman had done so in American history.
Photos show Johnson flanked by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and his wife, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, as he pledged to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Five days laterhe would address Congress invoking Kennedy’s vision for the country and calling for passage of civil rights and tax legislation.
Fast forward to Monday, and President-elect Trump’s inauguration ceremony is already making history. While the ceremony will take place at the Capitol, Trump announced that it will be held inside the Capitol Rotunda to shield people from the brutal cold forecast for that day. An indoor inauguration ceremony has not taken place since President Reagan’s in 1985, according to Washington Post.
