The U.S. Senate passed legislation Tuesday to make America’s National Churchill Museum a National Historic Landmark, sending the bill to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a corresponding bill in March after the legislation had been stalled in Congress for at least two years.
If Trump signs the bill, the museum in Fulton will become one of more than 2,500 National Historic Landmarks in the country. These include the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, Mount Vernon and the White House, as well as smaller places of historic significance.
According to the National Park Service, the landmarks are “historic properties that illustrate the heritage of the United States.” Each one “represents an outstanding aspect of American history and culture.”
Missouri already has 36 National Historic Landmarks, including Mark Twain’s home in Hannibal, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home in Mansfield, the village of Arrow Rock and Sanborn Field in Columbia, which played a significant role in the discovery of antibiotics.
Efforts to designate the Churchill Museum as a National Historic Landmark began in 2024 when U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley introduced the legislation. The bill passed in the Senate the same year, but time ran out before it could pass the House.
Earlier this year, Hawley reintroduced the bill in the Senate with U.S. Rep. Bob Onder submitting a corresponding House bill.
Located in Fulton on the Westminster College campus, the National Churchill Museum commemorates Winston Churchill, former U.K. prime minister, who delivered the historic “Iron Curtain” speech in the college gymnasium in 1946.
The centerpiece of the museum is the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, a 17th-century building moved stone-by-stone to Fulton from London 60 years ago. Originally constructed in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 17th century in London, the church was brought to the U.S. in 1966 for reconstruction efforts.
“The church is a 17th-century church designed by Christopher Wren, the same architect who did St. Paul’s Cathedral in London,” said Timothy Riley, director and chief curator of America’s National Churchill Museum in Fulton.
“(It) stood proudly in London for hundreds of years but was destroyed, except for the shell of the building, by firebombs in World War II,” he said.
The museum also includes exhibits about Churchill’s personal and political life, with a reading room that houses an extensive research collection about the life of the British statesman. Outside the church is a sculpture called “Breakthrough” that was designed by Churchill’s granddaughter, artist Edwina Sandys, from eight sections of the Berlin Wall.
Churchill’s 1946 speech reminded the world that they couldn’t rest on their laurels, that Soviet communism was a looming threat to Western democracy, Riley said.
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” the prime minister said in his original speech.
Conceived in the 1960s, the museum opened in 1969, and Riley said it could be considered “a presidential library for a British prime minister.”
The church had been heavily bombed during a German air raid in World War II, leaving only the outer walls, columns and bell tower. It remained in ruins until then-Westminster College president Larry Davidson wondered if it could be rebuilt to create a monument to Churchill.
It took four years to secure permission from the British and raise $1.5 million (more than $12 million today) to make the project a reality.
Since then, more efforts to preserve the church have been undertaken. Just recently, the museum completed a $4 million effort to waterproof the exterior of the building — including the original stones.
Fundraising still needs to be done to raise money for internal preservation, Riley said, which could be helped with National Historic Landmark status.
“There’s a section of legislation which instructs the Secretary of Interior to conduct a study to see if there are future partnership opportunities,” Riley said.
There are no guarantees, but Riley said he is hopeful the status alone will lead to improvements.
“From an operational standpoint, nothing will change,” he said. “It’s not going to become part of the federal park system, for instance, and management and control of the museum will remain with Westminster College.”
“But I think the designation will be a great boost for attendance,” he added. “It puts us on par with things like the Arch and Liberty Hall, great monuments around the country.”
And while they’re not celebrating the passage of the bill just yet, Riley said there’s plenty to be excited about. 2026 marked both the 80th anniversary of Churchill’s speech and the 175th anniversary of Westminster College. All of this means it’s a good time to reflect.
“It’s not just looking back at our history, but looking forward to the promise of the next generation,” Riley said. “That’s what excites me, frankly, and that’s what I think is great. For us to be able to say we have an amazing past and a lot of extraordinary history happened here.”
