The Washington Monument Was a Stone Stump in a Cow Pasture for 25 Years

For 25 years, the Washington Monument was a 152-foot stone stump in a cow pasture. The money ran out, the Civil War hit, and when engineers finally came back, the stump was already leaning on a small foundation sitting in soft mud and sand. Stacking 555 feet of marble on that base was out. So they dug underneath the standing tower, one small section at a time, filling each hole with concrete until the new footing covered two and a half times the area. In 1884 the capstone went on, and over the next century the monument settled only about two inches. Sources: • 1880 Army Corps of Engineers foundation drawing (original stepped foundation and new concrete underpinning) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_Monument_foundation.png • Washington Monument circa 1860, Brady-Handy Collection, Library of Congress — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_Monument_circa_1860_-_Brady-Handy.jpg • NPS — https://www.nps.gov/wamo/learn/historyculture/index.htm • Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument