The chief of communications for the National Mall and Memorial Parks gives Thrillist the insider intel.
If you ’ve ever watched a picture show about an alien invasion , specificallyEarth vs. the Flying Saucers(1956),Mars Attacks!(1998 ) or any picture show in the Marvel Universe that contains close encounters of the third kind , you ’ve seen the Washington Monument . An iconic American historical landmark located in Washington DC ’s National Mall , the memorial is a stone obelisk stretching 555 fundament into the sky . It was build to memorialize founding Fatherhood George Washington and remains the world ’s tallest predominately I. F. Stone structure — and an essential tourer locale for US history fans .
Whether you ’re a local or a first - time visitor to The District , there ’s mass of hidden or lesser - lie with trivia about this historically significant monument . Mike Litterst , chief of communications for the National Mall and Memorial Parks , help oneself us notice the fact that only those in the know … know .
1 . It was the tall building in the humanity at the meter of its completionAlthough the Washington Monument is tall , it ’s far from the tall in the earth . ( That title is currently restrain by the 2,717 - groundwork - tallBurj Khalifain Dubai . ) However , Litterst points out , innovative tourists expect up at it and thinkWow , that ’s moderately tall if we load our imaginations to when it was completed in 1888 . This was the tallest structure in the world at that time . ( The Eiffel tower would blow the monument out of the water for the marvelous construction shortly thereafter . )
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2 . It has a color shift about a third of the way up . visitant to the memorial can see a slight shift in colour about a third of the way up the obelisk . And , no , it ’s not from the mellow water line of a late flood lamp . ( Litterst read most of the staff at the monument has a favored not - factually - free-base cause for the change in chromaticity . ) The true statement is there was a pause in the construction of the monument from 1854 to 1877 due to funding challenges . ( The toll of the original designing , adjusted for modern inflation , would ’ve been around $ 30,000,000 in 2024 . ) Thus , the Army Corps of Engineers who took over the project had to seek out stone from a unlike prey and the coloration of the dagger was deepen .
3 . The Army Corps of Engineers had to dramatically fix the monument ’s thickness . The aforementioned first third of the obelisk was build by the Washington National Monument Society . They pack it upon themselves to make this monument take place , spurred on by their loyal fanfare for George Washington , according to the National Park Service ’s website . They get an original plan from Robert Mills , an American cartographer and architect from South Carolina , and adjust to work .
When they hit a funding barricade , the Army Corps of Engineers took over . This was also a very dissimilar level of building professionalism from the Army Corps of Engineers , said Litterst . There ’s a swelled difference between engineers from the U.S. government and a “ bunch of guys convey together . ”
Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images
Thus , when it was eventually taken over by the engineers , a few errors had to be objurgate . The wall were way too thick . At the base of the statue you ’ll still retrieve that the walls are around 15 feet thick . It was determined , according to Litterst , that if the entire monument was build with the walls that same heaviness , it would collapse in on itself due to the sheer weight .
The thickness of the walls dramatically change farther up the statue . The top subdivision of the monument ’s wall are just 18 inches thick . The foundation was also wholly unequal for the expected height of the anatomical structure and had to be determine over the trend of a few years . The angle also had to be correct as the bottom third of the structure was sitting a few stage off of plumb line with the soil below .
4 . This is a far outcry from the original design . The original design the Washington National Monument Society sought to establish is far dissimilar from the classic Egyptian - mode obelisk we see standing today . The original design , harmonise to Litterst , call for not only a colonnade - look building encircling the bottom of a 600 - foot column , but also a statue of Washington himself stand in a chariot and holding the rein of six horses . Inside the colonnade would be statues of 30 prominent Revolutionary War heroes as well as statues of the signers of the Declaration of Independence .
Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images
Architect Henry Robinson Searle from Rochester , New York had objection to the original design , according to a rule book entitledWashington Monument Monographwhich was primitively published by Gibson Bros. printers in 1847 and made public ( and available via cyberspace ) by the Library of Congress .
“ First , would the fundament support the weight of the required height , and especially with the increased localize force per unit area in a storm of wind ; secondly , the mere obelisk appeared only as an enlarged piracy , in no way instance the computer memory of Washington personally , or those connected with him , or the history of this mature country ; third , there is nothing whatever aesthetical about it , and nothing that would strike the visitant , whether native or foreign , with the splendor of the work of Washington and his coadjutors in founding this Carry Amelia Moore Nation . ”
Boom , roasted .
5 . Elevator drive of yore were muchmuchslower . The elevator to the top of the Washington Monument today exact about 70 seconds . It ’s the same as going up to the top story of a 50 - chronicle edifice . This is also the 5th elevator this structure has had instal since its expression . The original steam - power lift took a whopping 10 to 12 minute to get to the top .
6 . It ’s crest with aluminum ( which used to be a caboodle more impressive).Litters revealed that the repository is capped with 100 ounces of pure aluminum . Today , that does n’t seem so unbelievable move over our grocery - memory board admittance to roll of the constituent . If we once again put ourselves in the shoes of Americans at the time when the metallic element was put onto the memorial , around 1884 , Al ore had just begun being processed and was , ounce for ounce , just as worthful as silver . Imagine that the monument was cap in sodding silver or amber and that ’s a comparable example for its value at the time the memorial was being build , Litterst point out .
7 . It ’s held together by gravity . There is a slice of glory that this monument has hold on to despite its passing of the mankind ’s tallest construction title . The structure has no internal scaffolding . It has no metal internal structure obtain it up , in fact it ’s only held together by gravity and force of detrition between the stones . Therefore , the complex body part make to keep the title of the tallest freestandingstonestructure .
8 . It ’s undergo several restorations . Since it ’s a loose - resist structure , the monument is incredibly difficult to preserve . Each time upkeep need to be done on the marble all 555 invertebrate foot of the thing need to be covered by scaffold . That said , it was restored once in the 1930s , as a part of a WPA ( Work Progress Administration ) task . Again in the 1960s around the National Park Service ’s 50th anniversary . It was forebode mission 66 . Between 1998 and 2001 it was scaffolded as a part of a syllabus call Save America ’s Treasures . And in the end , most recently , between 2011 and 2014 it require sustainment conform to the 2011 Virginia Earthquake . Each meter the structure is scaffolded , according to Litterst , it take 35 miles of piping which is then made into a irregular construction around the monument .
9 . Somehow the Roman Catholic Pope is involved . On the day it opened to the public , there were Stone from all 50 states and about a dozen countries inside the bodily structure . There was even a piece of marble from the Acropolis in Athens , according to Litterst . Even Pope Pius IX sent in a Lucy Stone . Today you could see 194 different commemorating Harlan Stone graze from authoritative historical flesh to run - of - the - John Mill George Washington admirer .
10 . It was , in part , constructed in 20 - ft segments . As we ’ve underwrite , the monument does n’t presently have any scaffolding supporting the stone bodily structure . During its construction , it was a different story . After the bottom third , the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construct the monument in 20 - foot segments . During the construction of these Edward Durell Stone segments there was interior scaffolding for builders to use . They would work up 20 animal foot up , then move up the branding iron scaffolding , then construct another 20 feet . A steam - power lift was used to elevate up to six tones of endocarp up the transportable branding iron frame . The operation of building up these rock segments was comparable to the modern experience of building Lego ( on an entirely unlike exfoliation ) according to Litterst .
11 . The cornerstone ceremonial was a star - studded event . In 1848 , when grammatical construction began on the monument , there was a observance . 20,000 masses get to watch , let in some home name calling . President James K. Polk was there . A handful of next presidents – specifically Buchanan , Lincoln , and Johnson – were in attending . Eliza Hamilton , Alexander Hamilton ’s window and distinct fibre in the modern melodious with their share last name . Really , a who ’s who of the 1848 political setting .
12 . The cap was placed purposefully . During the final stretchability of the memorial ’s building , there was the precarious business of sequester the pyramid - form topper . About 470 foot in the air , builder began point in the structure , according to the National Parks Service website . On December 6 , 1884 , the 3,300 - British pound sterling capstone was place atop the structure . It was brought out one of the windows , hoisted to the scaffolding at the top of the repository , and coiffure in place . Lt . Col . Thomas Lincoln Casey , who led the Army Corps of Engineers ’s piece of work on the structure , then placed that 8.9 - inch aluminum tip on the very top of the capstone .
