In 1840, Secretary of War Joel Poinsett commissioned Robert Mills to create a plan for the recently proposed Smithsonian Institution's building and the grounds from the Capitol to the future site of the Washington Monument. Mills broke the Mall into…

The Treasury Department is one of the oldest government departments. It was among those established when the federal government moved to Washington in 1800. The first Treasury Department building was damaged by fire in 1801 and completely destroyed…

This original, lavish design of the Washington Monument was created by Robert Mills, who won a national design competition in 1836 sponsored by the Washington National Monument Society. The Society relied on public funds for construction. Shortly…

Robert Mills, an architect from South Carolina, won the competition to design the Washington Monument in 1836. Although construction began under his supervision, work stopped in 1854, a year before he died, and the monument was not completed for…

The Washington Monument is the only actual monument on the National Mall because Washington was alive when it began to be planned. All others on the Mall are memorials, created after the person being remembered has died. Begun in 1848, construction…