Washington Monument

The Washington National Monument Society began raising money for a memorial to the first president in 1833 and laid the cornerstone on July 4, 1848, in front of a crowd that included a young congressman named Abraham Lincoln. Construction relied entirely on public subscription, and dozens of states, foreign governments, and civic groups sent carved memorial stones to be set into the interior walls. Work ground to a halt in 1854, roughly 150 feet up, after the nativist Know-Nothing Party seized control of the funding society, a stone donated by Pope Pius IX was stolen by Know-Nothing sympathizers and dumped in the Potomac River, and money simply ran out.

The unfinished shaft stood as a stump through the Civil War, used at one point to pasture cattle for the Union Army, before Congress finally took over funding and construction in 1876. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Lincoln Casey of the Army Corps of Engineers oversaw the resumption, and the switch in marble supply after the 25-year gap left a visible color change in the stone roughly a third of the way up — still noticeable today. Workers capped the monument with an aluminum apex, then an exotic and expensive metal, in December 1884. It was dedicated on February 21, 1885, and opened to the public three years later.

At 555 feet 5 1/8 inches, the Washington Monument was the tallest structure on Earth when it was completed, a record the Eiffel Tower took from it within five years. A federal height restriction has kept it the tallest structure in the capital ever since. A 5.8-magnitude earthquake in August 2011 cracked stones near the top and closed the monument for nearly three years of repair. Visitors have ridden an elevator to the observation deck near the top since 1888, a ride that takes roughly 70 seconds and remains one of the National Mall's most popular attractions.