Histories of the National Mall launched in 2014 and is no longer being updated.
What is in this Site?
The site takes you on a tour of the National Mall's rich past by offering historical maps, a chronology of past events, short bios of significant individuals, and episodes in the Mall's history. The site is designed for mobile devices while touring the Mall, or at home on a desktop browser.
The site's major sections let you follow different paths into the history of the Mall:
- Maps: Explore historical events, people, and places on a Google map of today's Mall, or select a historical map layer to see what the Mall looked like in the past.
- Explorations: Discover episodes in Mall history by answering questions that include topics on everyday life in Washington, arts and culture, design and landscapes, politics and protests, and memorials and museums.
- People: Meet people who shaped the history and development of the Mall as a public space.
- Past Events: See how significant events shaped the Mall's history, design, and interpretation as a public gathering space.
*You will never need to download a separate app or additional software to access the content of this website.
Using this Site on the Mall
The site is designed to work well while touring on the Mall on a smartphone, tablet, or any device with an internet connection. If WIFI is available on your device, you will see public networks are available on the Mall from the Smithsonian Institution (SI-public) and the District of Columbia (DC-Public). Sometimes the networks are slow, because of heavy use.
The strongest outdoor WIFI connections are near the museum buildings, between the US Capitol building and 14th Street, NW.
Funders
The National Endowment for the Humanities generously funded the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, at George Mason University, to develop Histories of the National Mall.
Learn more about the project's development, design, and project team.
Awards
The National Council on Public History selected Histories of the National Mall as the Outstanding Public History Project for 2015.
Connect
Follow our Tumblr or like us on Facebook.
Share your thoughts or images of exploring the Mall by tweeting at us: @mallhistories.