In 1882, Congress approved the creation of a statue to honor John Marshall, fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The statue was sculpted by artist William Wetmore Story, whose father had served on the Supreme Court with Marshall. It was…

By 1870, after two years on the National Mall, the Department of Agriculture combined the functions of an office building, a research center, library, and museum. In this stereoscopic view of the mall, visitors chat in from of large iron and glass…

This political cartoon was printed in New York in 1885. Complaining about all of the monuments being erected to honor our nation's history in the wake of the turmoil of the Civil War, the captions proclaims "No more of those hideous monuments!"…

David Burnes, one of the original nineteen proprietors of land that created the District of Columbia, lived in this humble cottage overlooking today's Constitution Avenue. Burnes owned 700 acres encompassing the heart of downtown, including the…

This landscape painting of Washington, DC, looks out from the area that is Union Station today onto the early US Capitol building. George Washington built two row houses to the right of the Capitol. Although this is a highly romanticized view of the…

In 1876 after sitting uncompleted for almost twenty years Congress passed a joint resolution taking charge of the completion of the monument. Taking control of the land and monument back from the Washington National Monument Society who had run out…

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…

This Washington Post article from February 22, 1885 discusses the features of the newly completed Washington Monument. Including facts about height, weight, and marble used, the article shows the enthusiasm Americans felt that the monument was…

In 1791, Andrew Ellicott surveyed the future city of Washington, taking the place of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the city's original designer. While Ellicott reshaped many intricacies of L'Enfant's plans for grand views, fountains, and public buildings,…

Although most of the office buildings constructed on the Mall to house war department offices during World War I and II had been removed by the 1960s, a row of buildings from 1918 still stood in the space between Constitution Avenue and the…