December 6:

1884 : Washington Monument completed
On this day in 1884, in Washington, D.C., workers
place a nine-inch aluminum pyramid atop a tower of
white marble, completing the construction of an
impressive monument to the city's namesake and the
nation's first president, George Washington.
As early as 1783, the infant U.S. Congress decided
that a statue of George Washington, the great
Revolutionary War general, should be placed near the
site of the new Congressional building, wherever it
might be. After then-President Washington asked him to
lay out a new federal capital on the Potomac River in
1791, architect Pierre L'Enfant left a place for the
statue at the western end of the sweeping National
Mall (near the monument's present location).
It wasn't until 1832, however--33 years after
Washington's death--that anyone really did anything
about the monument. That year, a private Washington
National Monument Society was formed. After holding a
design competition and choosing an elaborate Greek
temple-like design by architect Robert Mills, the
society began a fundraising drive to raise money for
the statue's construction. These efforts--including
appeals to the nation's schoolchildren--raised some
$230,000, far short of the $1 million needed.
Construction began anyway, on July 4, 1848, as
representatives of the society laid the cornerstone of
the monument: a 24,500-pound block of pure white
marble.
Six years later, with funds running low, construction
was halted. Around the time the Civil War began in
1861, author Mark Twain described the unfinished
monument as looking like a "hollow, oversized
chimney." No further progress was made until 1876--the
centennial of American independence--when President
Ulysses S. Grant authorized construction to be
completed.
Made of some 36,000 blocks of marble and granite
stacked 555 feet in the air, the monument was the
tallest structure in the world at the time of its
completion in December 1884. In the six months
following the dedication ceremony, over 10,000 people
climbed the nearly 900 steps to the top of the
Washington Monument. Today, an elevator makes the trip
far easier, and more than 800,000 people visit the
monument each year. A city law passed in 1910
restricted the height of new buildings to ensure that
the monument will remain the tallest structure in
Washington, D.C.--a fitting tribute to the man known
as the "Father of His Country."

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