What is the Washington Monument?

The Washington Monument is a 555-foot marble obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., dedicated to the memory of George Washington, the first President of the United States and commander in chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The monument was the tallest structure in the world from its completion in 1884 until the Eiffel Tower was finished in 1889, and it remains the tallest stone structure and the tallest obelisk in the world. The monument stands at the western end of the National Mall, midway between the U.S. Capitol to the east and the Lincoln Memorial to the west, with the reflecting pool extending toward the Lincoln Memorial.

Its design was selected through a competition held by the Washington National Monument Society, founded in 1833 by veterans of the Revolutionary War. Architect Robert Mills won with a design featuring a 600-foot obelisk surrounded by a colonnade of statues, although the colonnade was later dropped. Construction began on July 4, 1848 with President James K. Polk laying the cornerstone.

Funding from voluntary donations slowed work, and political turmoil including the Know-Nothing party's takeover of the Society in 1854 stopped construction entirely from 1854 to 1877, leaving the monument at 152 feet for more than two decades, sometimes mocked as a stunted column. Federal funding under the Grant administration restarted work in 1877. The monument was completed on December 6, 1884 when the 3,300-pound aluminum capstone was placed, and dedicated on February 21, 1885.

Aluminum was then a precious metal, and the small pyramidal capstone was at the time the largest piece of aluminum ever cast. Marble for the lower portion came from a quarry near Texas, Maryland; the upper portion uses marble from Sheffield, Massachusetts. Visitors can clearly see a horizontal color change about a third of the way up where construction resumed with marble from a different vein. The monument contains 36,491 stones and weighs about 81,120 tons.

The interior includes a stairway of 897 steps and an elevator that has carried visitors to the observation level since 1888 (originally steam-powered, taking 12 minutes to climb; the modern elevator takes about 70 seconds). The observation level at 500 feet provides panoramic views of Washington and the surrounding area. The monument was damaged in the magnitude 5.8 earthquake on August 23, 2011 and was closed for repairs from 2011 to 2014 and again from 2016 to 2019 for elevator modernization.

About 800,000 to 1 million visitors enter the monument each year, with millions more viewing it from outside. The monument is one of the most photographed structures in the world.