An executive committee (including Rutherford B. Hayes) formed to oversee the erection of a monument and place of interment for Garfield and his family in Cleveland. The committee sent out a call for architectural plans in the New York Times; the incentive being notoriety and a cash prize. Meanwhile, the idea was for Cleveland and the rest of the nation to contribute $250,000 to fund the project. Within a year, it was clear that they would only raise about $136,000.

By June 1884, the trustees had chosen the winners for the design contest.

Third place and $500: Moffitt & Doyle of New York
Second place and $750: C.F. & J.A. Schweinfurth of Cleveland
First place and $1,000: George H. Keller of Hartford, Connecticut

This cabinet card depicts George Keller's winning design from the contest. Ryder must have photographed the drawing and distributed it to the public while the three winning designs were on display in his gallery from May-June 1884.

The committee was unable to raise their goal amount for the monument. Once work started, it became clear that they didn’t even have enough money to complete Keller’s design. It was time to improvise. First, with a rumor that the building foundation was too unstable to support such a high tower. As a result, the tower height became 150 feet instead of 225 feet. Fewer materials! Next, corners were cut with the building materials. Brick substituted stone whenever possible. This sparked a lawsuit between the sub-contractor and contractor. To accommodate all of these changes, architects Calvert Vaux and Henry van Brunt were called in to make design modifications.