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Washington Monument Virtual Tour

Washington Monument Virtual Tour

The Monument is meant to be experienced not only from the outside, but from the inside. Architect Robert Mills designed the structure to last the ages, and its foundations go deep in the ground. Built of marble over a brick and stone rubble core, the Monument consists of three principal spaces; the gallery, the stairs, and the lookout. Subterranean vaults (not open to the public) support the gallery above, and a central core foundation goes even deeper.

Many of the other Monument finishes, including the interior plaster walls, the doors, and the surrounding decorative fence are not what the seem—they are all decorative finishes made to look like stone or bronze, as was originally intended.

For two centuries visitors have been climbing the 227 steps to take in views of the city of Baltimore. 

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Mount Vernon Place Timeline

Mount Vernon Place Timeline

When America’s first President George Washington died in 1799, the new United States of America went into mourning. His generation had accomplished a herculean feat—political independence from Great Britain—at the time one of the most powerful nations in the world. They also had established a stable new government through The Constitution. Baltimorean citizens were the first in the country to erect a memorial to Washington—one that also celebrated the national independence he had help secure.

The construction of the Monument is extra-ordinarily well documented, as is the development of the surrounding squares of Mount Vernon Place. These events are explored in a richly illustrated timeline.

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Washington Monument Facts and Figures

Washington Monument Facts and Figures

While the Monument was being built, notices of its construction and completion were often placed in the newspaper to inform the public about its progress. These notices sometimes included facts about its height or materials. Soon after it was completed small brochures and broadsides began to appear outlining its dimensions and other facts. How tall is it? Where did the marble come from? How many steps are there? Who served on the original Board of Managers? Using laser scanning and calculations, the Conservancy was for the time able to determine how much the statue of Washington weighs.

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A Patriotic Landscape

A Patriotic Landscape

Baltimore and the City Beautiful: Carrère & Hastings Reshapes an American City.

Mount Vernon Place has a long and distinguished landscape design history, one prompted by its magnificent centerpiece Robert Mills’ Washington Monument, which set a high bar for the development of the surrounding grounds. Over time, in addition to Mills’ contributions, the park spaces were also designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., whose firm transformed the North and South Squares in the 1870s.

A convergence of World War I patriotism and turn-of-the-century City Beautiful aspirations transformed the squares in 1917, when the firm of Carrère & Hastings was brought into Baltimore to continue earlier work they had been involved with in the city. Mount Vernon Place was only one of the public spaces the firm transformed during this campaign—a project spurred on by a wish to add a statue of the Marquis de Lafayette to the setting as a show of support to the French fighting for their national liberty during the first World War. Lafayette’s contribution to American independence had long been acknowledged. The new work reunited Lafayette and Washington in a landscape setting—one which required a new vision for the squares that brought them into harmony with the classical marble design of the Washington Monument.

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The Monumental City

The Monumental City

What’s in a Name? Baltimore—"The Monumental City.”

For over two hundred years Baltimore has been called “The Monumental City.” Since the 1970s it has been believed that this moniker was dubbed by President John Quincy Adams when he visited Baltimore in 1827, and toasted the city with the name. New scholarship reveals that Adams did not coin the term but, in fact, used one that had been in circulation for several years. Scholar Dr. Lance Humphries discovered that the phrase was apparently first used in print in 1823 by Joseph Gales, the editor of the National Intelligencer in nearby Washington, DC.

The nickname emerged out of regional jealousies between Washington and Baltimore. While the former was the new capital of the country, it was in shambles after the War of 1812, out of which Baltimore not only emerged unscathed—but within several years began construction on the first Monument dedicated to George Washington, and by extension, American national independence. While Gales’ use of the phrase was ironic, within months it became an honorific title—deemed appropriate for the first city to erect a monumental memorial to the founding of the United States.

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1815 Cornerstone Ceremony Account

1815 Cornerstone Ceremony Account

An Authentic Account of All the Proceedings on the Fourth of July, 1815, With Regard to Laying the Corner Stone of the Washington Monument.

 On July 4, 1815 Baltimoreans laid the cornerstone of the first monument dedicated to George Washington, the first President of the United States. Within days a detailed account of the ceremony was published in the newspapers, and soon thereafter the entire ceremony was published as a pamphlet. 

Although the account was very detailed, including mention of what was deposited in the cornerstone, the accounts did not mention where the cornerstone was, and it was lost to time until the Mount Vernon Place Conservancy restored the Washington Monument in 2014-15. At that time, while digging a sewage pit off the northeast corner of the Monument, the cornerstone was located below grade on that corner of the building.

Read the detailed account of this important day:

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An Authentic Account of All the Proceedings on the Fourth of July, 1815, With Regard to Laying the Corner Stone of the

What’s in a Name? Baltimore—”The Monumental City.” For over two hundred years Baltimore has been called “The Monumental City.” Since the 1970s

Baltimore and the City Beautiful: Carrère & Hastings Reshapes an American City. Mount Vernon Place has a long and distinguished landscape design