Construction Details
The completed monument stands 555 ft 5 1⁄8 in (169.294 m) tall, with the following construction materials and details:
- Phase One (1848 to 1858): To the 152-foot (46 m) level, under the direction of Superintendent William Daugherty.
- Exterior: White marble from Texas, Maryland (adjacent to and east of north I-83 near the Warren Road exit in Cockeysville).
- Phase Two (1878 to 1888): Work completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, commanded by Lt. Col. Thomas L. Casey.
- Exterior: White marble, three courses or rows, from Sheffield, Massachusetts.
- Exterior: White marble from Beaver Dam Quarry (now Beaverdam Pond) near Cockeysville, Maryland.
- Structural: marble (0–555 feet (0–169 m)), bluestone gneiss (below 150 feet (46 m)), granite (150–450 feet (46–137 m)), concrete (below ground, unreinforced)
- Commemorative stones: granite, marble, limestone, sandstone, soapstone, jade
- Aluminum apex, at the time a rare metal as valuable as silver, was cast by William Frishmuth. Before the installation it was put on public display and stepped over by visitors who could say they had "stepped over the top of the Washington Monument".
- Cost of the monument during 1848–85: $1,187,710
Cost of the monument during 1848–88: $1,409,500
Read more about this topic: Washington Monument
Famous quotes containing the words construction and/or details:
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price that a man must pay for a high station.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)