The association ultimately received $978,000 in donations from more than one million people across the country, as well as contributions from several European nations.

Among the list of contributors from the United States were an estimated 200,000 school children, who donated pennies towards the memorial.

The structure is unroofed (peribolus), in the style of some Greek temples in which the center (Hypaethros) was open to the sky and without a roof (medium autem sub diva est sine tecto).

On June 16, 1931, President Herbert Hoover gave a speech at the dedication ceremony of the Warren G. Harding memorial.

The following are excerpts from Hoover's eulogy:[4] I DEEM it a privilege to join here in the dedication of the tomb of Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States.

He brought to the Office of President a long experience in public affairs together with the character and spirit of which the Republic was then in need.

He was a man of delicate sense of honor, of sympathetic heart, of transcendent gentleness of soul – who reached out for friendship, who gave of it loyally and generously in his every thought and deed.

Following a reduction in state funding, the Ohio Historical Society transferred day-to-day management of the tomb and the nearby Harding Home to Marion Technical College (MTC) in April 2010.

This trend began with the burial of President Abraham Lincoln in his tomb in Springfield, Illinois.

Since Harding, presidents have chosen burial plot designs that are simpler or combined those with their library sites.