December 6, 2011 - Washington Monument Completed

n– 1884

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Havenyou ever wondered how monuments are designed? Why they are so varied?nWhy does the first U.S. president, George Washington, get a monumentnthat is so stark and simple—an obelisk—whereas America’s thirdnpresident, Thomas Jefferson, gets a building, flights of steps, anstatue, and quotes from Jefferson’s most famous writings inscribed onnthe walls?

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nItnall depends on who builds the monument, and when. Many monuments arendesigned after a sort of competition allows many differentnsuggestions to arise—and then a committee decides which design tonfund. n

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nInnthe case of the Washington Monument, in 1783, long before GeorgenWashington died, Congress determined that an equestrian statue (anfigure of Washington on a horse) should be erected in honor of thennew nation’s heroic general. However, to say that something should benbuilt does not, in fact, build it, and for years, no monument ornstatue was funded or created. In 1799, Washington died, and there wasna lot of general talk about honoring this national hero—by then notnjust the most important military figure in the victorious War ofnIndependence, but also the nation’s first president. (By the way,nsome people claim that a lot of other guys, including John Hanson,nwere U.S. presidents before George Washington, when the nation wasnstruggling along with the Articles of Confederation. However, JohnnHanson and others were not chief executives of the nation—they werenreally only presidents of the Continental Congress.) Still, there wasna lot of talk but no actual fund-raising, so no actual construction.

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nJohnnMarshall, James Madison, and others created the Washington NationalnMonument Society in 1833, and they held a competition to design annappropriate monument to Washington. The winner of the contest wasnRobert Mills. He planned the obelisk – but one that had a nearlynflat top – and also a colonnade, that is, a circle of columns withna roof over all. On top of the roof, Mills planned a statue ofnWashington in a chariot. Inside the colonnade, Mills planned to putnstatues of thirty Revolutionary War heroes. This was not a simplendesign!

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nOnnJuly 4, 1848, the society held a ceremony in which the cornerstone ofnthe obelisk was laid. A “recess” was built into the cornerstone,nand into that hole were placed many things, including a copy of thenConstitution of the United States, a copy of the Declaration ofnIndependence, a design of the Washington Monument, a portrait ofnWashington, a map of the city of Washington, D.C., a census of thenUnited States, statistics about the city of Washington, D.C., all thencoins of the U.S., by-laws of the Powhatan Tribe, flags, a variety ofnbooks and magazines and other writings, military laws and records, anBible, copies of letters from U.S. presidents to other importantnindividuals, journals of the Senate and House of Representatives, andnrecords of natural phenomena such as winds, currents, andnastronomical observations. Oh, and much, much more!

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nStill,nit was hard to fund the building of the monument. The obelisk rose upnto a height of 156 feet—but then for twenty years, there was nonprogress. The Civil War broke out, distracting people. Eventually,nthe Union won the war, the nation began to get back to normal, and inn1876, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered the federal government tonfinish the construction of the monument. At this point, the guy inncharge did a very smart thing: he scaled back the plans to just thenobelisk, this time with a pyramid-top instead of a flat top. The U.S.nArmy Corps of Engineers took over the construction, and voila! Then555-foot-tall monument was finished in 1884.

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nAndnon this day in 1884, workers placed the 3,300-pound marble capstonenat the top of the obelisk and then topped that with a nine-inchnpyramid of cast aluminum.

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nEvennthough nobody can see the sides of the pyramid top of the monument,nthey are inscribed with words detailing the commission members at thentime of the setting of the capstone, important dates in the buildingnof the monument, names of the chief engineers and architects, and thenLatin words “Laus Deo” (Praise God). n

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nThenWashington Monument is the tallest structure in Washington, D.C., andnwill remain so (there’s a law!). When it was built, it was thentallest masonry structure in the world, and it still is the tallestnfreestanding masonry structure in the world. About 36,000 stackednblocks of granite and marble make up the obelisk, and inside thenstructure almost 896 steps surround an elevator so that visitors canneither climb or ride up to the observation level. n

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nBynthe way, that equestrian statue of Washington was also built,ncompleted in 1858. It stands near the U.S. Capitol.

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nAlsonon this Date: