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Today is the 122nd anniversary of the completion of the Washington Monument, a 555-ft. tall obelisk made of marble, granite, and sandstone. The tower is one of the world's largest all-masonry structures and the crowning achievement of architect Robert Mills. Born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1781, Mills was the first professionally-trained architect born in the United States. His tribute to George Washington, one of the new nation's founding fathers, began in Baltimore, where Mill's designed that city's own Washington memorial. During the 1830s, proponents of a national Washington monument raised $30,000 and announced a design competition. Mills, now the Architect of Public Buildings for Washington, D.C., was a natural choice for the project. His original million-dollar design called for a 600-ft tall tower with a tapered rise and circular colonnade. A chariot-drawn George Washington would stand atop the tower while statues of 30 Revolutionary War heroes would populate the colonnade.
Work on the Washington Monument began on July 4, 1848, when builders set the cornerstone for the structure's 55-ft. wide base as part of a Fourth of July ceremony. Construction continued until 1854, when the Washington National Monument Society spent the last of its donations. Congress appropriated $200,000 for the project in 1855, but rescinded its contribution after a nativist organization gained control of the Society. The death of Robert Mills and the start of the American Civil War further impeded the project, helping to halt construction when the monument was just 150-ft. high. In 1876, interest in America's Centennial caused Congress to agree to another appropriation. Before construction resumed, however, plans to build the colonnade were scrapped, radically altering Mills' original design. George P. Marsh, the ambassador to Italy and a student of Egyptian architecture, recommended reducing the tower's height to 555 ft. and capping the monument with aluminum. William Wetmore Story, an American sculptor and art critic, ultimately presented a plan which preserved the obelisk's design.
In 1879, Lt. Col. Thomas Lincoln Casey of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took command of the nation's efforts to finish the memorial to its first Commander-in-Chief. Casey's redesign of the obelisk's foundation ensured that it could support 40,000 tons and incorporate nearly 200 memorial stones as part of the interior walls. On December 6, 1884, builders set the tower's 3300-lb. marble capstone in place. At the time, the Washington Monument was the tallest building in the world. Today, the structure is still the tallest building in the District of Columbia.
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