On March 4, 1911, President William Howard Taft authorized Congressional funding for a national memorial to be located in the town of McKinley's birth, Niles, Ohio.

[5] Association president Joseph G. Butler, Jr., who had been a childhood friend and schoolmate of McKinley, began a $100,000 local campaign to raise funds for the memorial in 1912.

[6] After securing nearly $200,000 for the memorial without utilizing taxpayer funding, Butler and the association sought public donations of $1 each to establish a permanent endowment.

The city of Niles had already set aside a five-acre park as a location for the memorial (purchased with municipal funds), and the association stipulated that the design would be for a granite two-story structure with a basement, and that the structure must include a 1,000-seat auditorium (the "main feature"), a public library, a "relic room" for display of assorted effects, "an assembly hall for meetings of the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, where State encampments may be held, and for Spanish–American War Veterans, and a room for the meetings of officials of the city.

Edgerton Swartout (formerly with McKim, Mead & White), Charles A. Platt (landscape architect) and Edward Brodhead Green (Albright-Knox Art Gallery) served as judges for the competition.

[8] Their design, somewhat typical of their other Beaux-Arts work, reflected Greek and Roman themes in all aspects, from architectural elements to the lettering on tablets and statuary.

[citation needed] Former President Taft (also an Ohio native), in a speech endorsing American involvement in World War I, praised McKinley at the memorial's dedication ceremonies on October 5, 1917.