Happy Birthday, Washington Monument!

In 1884, 123 years ago today, the Washington Monument was completed as workers placed a nine-inch aluminum pyramid on the tower of white marble. The city's (and my state's) namesake, George Washington finally had a fitting monument. 100 years earlier, Congress decided a statue of the great Revolutionary War general should be placed near the site of the new Congressional building, wherever that ended up being. It wasn't until 1832, 33 years after Washington's death, that much really happened on the monument front. After holding a design competition and choosing an elaborate Greek temple-like design by architect Robert Mills, the society began fundraising money for the statue's construction. These efforts raised some less than a fourth of the the $1 million needed. Construction began anyway, and on July 4, 1848, they laid the cornerstone of the monument: a 24,500-pound block of pure white marble.

By 1854, 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." In 1876, President Grant ordered the construction to be completed.


another phallic monument,
known locally as "The Brick
Dick"in Ypsilanti, Michigan

At the time of its completion in December 1884, those 36,000 blocks of marble and granite stacked 555 feet in the air, were the tallest structure in the world. 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.
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