Washington Monument
The Washington Monument was built between 1848 and 1884 as a tribute
to George
Washington's military leadership from 1775-1783 during the American
Revolution. Its construction took place in two major phases,
1848-56, and 1876-84--a lack of funds, political turmoil, and
uncertainty about the survival of the American Union caused the
intermittent hiatus. Plans for a national monument began as early as
1783 when Congress proposed that an equestrian statue of George
Washington be erected. Although the
Monument was authorized by Congress, little action was taken, even after
Major Peter Charles L'Enfant selected its site in his 1791 Federal City
plan. Washington's 1799 death rekindled public aspiration for an
appropriate tribute to him, and John Marshall
proposed that a special sepulcher be erected for the General within the
Capitol itself. Lack of
funds postponed construction, but Marshall persevered, and in 1833, he,
James Madison, and others formed
the Washington National Monument Society. By 1836, the society
advertised for competitive
architectural designs. The winning architect was Robert Mills, whose
design called for a
neoclassical plan which provided for a nearly-flat-topped obelisk
surrounded by a circular
colonnade on which would stand a statue of Washington in a chariot.
Inside the colonnade,
statues of thirty prominent Revolutionary War heroes would be displayed.
In an elaborate Fourth of July ceremony in 1848, the cornerstone
was laid. Lack of funds and the
illegal election which placed the Washington National Monument Society
in the hands of the Know-Nothings, a political party, caused delay.
Although the Know-Nothings returned all records to the
original society in 1858, the latter could accomplish little without
funding. The outbreak of Civil War of 1861 exacerbated the society's
difficulties with fund-raising efforts. When Lt.Col.Thomas L.Casey,
Mills' successor, resumed work on the project in 1876, he heavily
altered the original design for the monument so that it resembled an
unadorned Egyptian obelisk with a pointed pyramidion. The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers of the War Department was charged with completing the
construction, and the monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885, and
officially
opened to the public on October 9, 1888.
Weighing 81,120 tons, the Washington Monument stands 555' 5-1/8"
tall. The walls of the
monument range in thickness from 15' at the base to 18'' at the upper
shaft. They are composed primarily
of white marble blocks from Maryland with a few from Massachusetts,
underlain by Maryland blue gneiss and Maine granite. A slight color
change is perceptible at the 150' level near where construction slowed
in 1854. Inserted into the interior walls are 193 memorial stones
presented by individuals, societies, cities, States, and nations of the
world. Attached to in independent iron framework, flights of 896 steps
surround an elevator which takes
visitors to the observation level, where they can gaze over the city
from the monument's pyramidion windows.
Height: 169 m
Construction started: 1848
Area: 43 ha
Opened: February 21, 1885
Address: 2 15th St NW, Washington, DC 20007, United States
