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
Watch on YouTube
