– 1884
Have
you ever wondered how monuments are designed? Why they are so varied?
Why does the first U.S. president, George Washington, get a monument
that is so stark and simple—an obelisk—whereas America's third
president, Thomas Jefferson, gets a building, flights of steps, a
statue, and quotes from Jefferson's most famous writings inscribed on
the walls?
It
all depends on who builds the monument, and when. Many monuments are
designed after a sort of competition allows many different
suggestions to arise—and then a committee decides which design to
fund.
In
the case of the Washington Monument, in 1783, long before George
Washington died, Congress determined that an equestrian statue (a
figure of Washington on a horse) should be erected in honor of the
new nation's heroic general. However, to say that something should be
built does not, in fact, build it, and for years, no monument or
statue was funded or created. In 1799, Washington died, and there was
a lot of general talk about honoring this national hero—by then not
just the most important military figure in the victorious War of
Independence, but also the nation's first president. (By the way,
some people claim that a lot of other guys, including John Hanson,
were U.S. presidents before George Washington, when the nation was
struggling along with the Articles of Confederation. However, John
Hanson and others were not chief executives of the nation—they were
really only presidents of the Continental Congress.) Still, there was
a lot of talk but no actual fund-raising, so no actual construction.
John
Marshall, James Madison, and others created the Washington National
Monument Society in 1833, and they held a competition to design an
appropriate monument to Washington. The winner of the contest was
Robert Mills. He planned the obelisk – but one that had a nearly
flat top – and also a colonnade, that is, a circle of columns with
a roof over all. On top of the roof, Mills planned a statue of
Washington in a chariot. Inside the colonnade, Mills planned to put
statues of thirty Revolutionary War heroes. This was not a simple
design!
On
July 4, 1848, the society held a ceremony in which the cornerstone of
the obelisk was laid. A “recess” was built into the cornerstone,
and into that hole were placed many things, including a copy of the
Constitution of the United States, a copy of the Declaration of
Independence, a design of the Washington Monument, a portrait of
Washington, a map of the city of Washington, D.C., a census of the
United States, statistics about the city of Washington, D.C., all the
coins of the U.S., by-laws of the Powhatan Tribe, flags, a variety of
books and magazines and other writings, military laws and records, a
Bible, copies of letters from U.S. presidents to other important
individuals, journals of the Senate and House of Representatives, and
records of natural phenomena such as winds, currents, and
astronomical observations. Oh, and much, much more!
Still,
it was hard to fund the building of the monument. The obelisk rose up
to a height of 156 feet—but then for twenty years, there was no
progress. The Civil War broke out, distracting people. Eventually,
the Union won the war, the nation began to get back to normal, and in
1876, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered the federal government to
finish the construction of the monument. At this point, the guy in
charge did a very smart thing: he scaled back the plans to just the
obelisk, this time with a pyramid-top instead of a flat top. The U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers took over the construction, and voila! The
555-foot-tall monument was finished in 1884.
And
on this day in 1884, workers placed the 3,300-pound marble capstone
at the top of the obelisk and then topped that with a nine-inch
pyramid of cast aluminum.
Even
though nobody can see the sides of the pyramid top of the monument,
they are inscribed with words detailing the commission members at the
time of the setting of the capstone, important dates in the building
of the monument, names of the chief engineers and architects, and the
Latin words “Laus Deo” (Praise God).
The
Washington Monument is the tallest structure in Washington, D.C., and
will remain so (there's a law!). When it was built, it was the
tallest masonry structure in the world, and it still is the tallest
freestanding masonry structure in the world. About 36,000 stacked
blocks of granite and marble make up the obelisk, and inside the
structure almost 896 steps surround an elevator so that visitors can
either climb or ride up to the observation level.
By
the way, that equestrian statue of Washington was also built,
completed in 1858. It stands near the U.S. Capitol.
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