The Washington National Monument Society settled on architect Robert Mills's design for a monument to the first U.S. president, a towering obelisk originally conceived with an elaborate colonnaded base. Funding troubles, the Civil War, and political infighting would stall construction for decades; the visible color change partway up the finished monument still marks where work paused for 23 years.
Robert Mills, already known for classical government buildings in Washington and Charleston, submitted a design far grander than what eventually rose: a 600-foot obelisk ringed at its base by a circular colonnaded temple studded with statues of Revolutionary War heroes, with George Washington himself depicted driving a chariot. The Monument Society liked the obelisk but balked at the cost of the temple, and over years the colonnade was quietly dropped.
Construction finally began in 1848, funded by public subscription, including stones donated by U.S. states, foreign nations, and organizations, some of which are still visible embedded in the interior walls. But money ran out, the Know-Nothing Party briefly seized control of the society and stalled work further, and the Civil War halted construction entirely at 152 feet for over two decades.
When work resumed in 1879 under the Army Corps of Engineers, builders used marble from a different quarry, creating the famous, faintly visible band of discoloration that rings the monument roughly a third of the way up. It stands today as an accidental monument to bureaucratic gridlock as much as to Washington himself, finished in 1884, then the tallest structure in the world.
Key people: Robert Mills