The original Smithsonian Institution Building, often called the Smithsonian Castle, caught fire in 1865 when workmen mistakenly installed a stovepipe in the building wall. The building was poorly fireproofed and the fire kindled unnoticed within the…

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was dedicated on the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. King's college fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha originally proposed a memorial to…

Cleve Jones is a human rights activist who created the idea of a memorial quilt commemorating people who have died of AIDS. The first time the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was displayed was October 11, 1987, when it was laid out in full on the…

Authorized by The Residence Act of 1790 to select a site along the Potomac to be the home of the new national government, President George Washington was heavily involved in the planning and development of the new federal city. He chose the area…

Richard West was the founding Director of the National Museum of the American Indian, serving from the museum's opening in 2004 until 2007. West is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and a Peace Chief of the Southern Cheyenne.…

Formed in 1833, the Washington National Monument Society took charge of creating a memorial to George Washington on the National Mall. They raised money through public donations and awarded the design contract to architect Robert Mills. In 1854,…

A prominent sculptor of memorials and monuments since the 1880s, Saint-Gaudens was a member of the Senate Park Commission. Formed in 1901, this commission was charged with developing the National Mall and other areas of Washington, DC. Saint-Gaudens…

Charles Carroll Glover was a business man who advocated for the development of parks in Washington, DC, during the late 1800s. In 1881, he called a meeting of fellow businessmen to propose transforming the Potomac flats, a tidal marsh area, into a…

Archie Alexander was an African American engineer from Iowa and the senior partner in the firm Alexander and Repass. In the 1940s, the firm was hired to build a bridge and seawall at the Tidal Basin. Alexander spearheaded the project and brought in…

Thomas Law was a wealthy Englishman who invested financially and ideologically in the development of the new city of Washington. In 1804 he wrote a pamphlet, published anonymously, proposing a canal from the Anacostia River to the Potomac following…