Histories of the National Mall

Histories of the National Mall takes you on a tour of the National Mall's rich past by offering historical maps, a chronology of past events, short bios of significant individuals, and episodes in the Mall's history. Designed for mobile devices while touring the Mall, or at home on a desktop browser. MallHistory.org.

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“In the early 19thc, the Smiths were among the earliest long-term, year round residents of the new national capital. At her home in Washington, Margaret entertained politicians, artists, authors, and journalists, of all political persuasions.”

Margaret Bayard Smith was a writer and a vital figure in the early social life of Washington, DC. Her letters and diaries provide some of the best descriptions of early Washington. In 1837 she recorded what the Mall looked like when she and her husband moved to Capitol Hill in 1800: "Between the foot of the hill and the broad Potomac extended a wide plain, through which the Tiber wound its way. The romantic beauty of this little stream was not then deformed by wharves or other works of art."

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This depiction from the 1880s shows the National Mall before the space was extended and the banks of the Potomac were reconstructed and fortified. 

This detail of the bird's eye view of the city, "The national capital, Washington, D.C. Sketched from nature by Adolph Sachse, 1883-1884" shows the National Mall before the Army Corps of Engineers began to dredge the Potomac River to fill in the tidal wetlands. The project was intended to enlarge the shipping channel and to help prevent flooding and sewage accumulation. The Reclamation of Potomac Flats began in 1882 and continued to 1890. Landfill extended the length and width of the Mall, forming East Potomac Park and extending the Mall beyond the site of the Washington Monument. When the project ended, Washington, DC, had 638 acres of new land.

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Happy Birthday to the first curator of the Smithsonian Institution, Spencer Baird!

Spencer Baird served as the first curator of the Smithsonian Institution and became the second Secretary of the Smithsonian. He worked at the Institution from 1850 until his death in 1887. Baird expanded and strengthened the Smithsonian's collections, and helped the young museum grow into a prominent research and educational organization. Baird devoted his career to caring for the museum's scientific collections and objects associated with the country's founding fathers. When Congress appropriated funds to create a second museum on the Mall next to the original Smithsonian Castle, Baird became its director. In 1878, he was appointed as Secretary of the Smithsonian.

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In 1848 Freeman Hunt described the Mall as "a mere cow-pasture," calling for further development of the city.

Freeman Hunt wrote a series of articles for his Merchants' Magazine in the spring of 1848 describing the history and current state of the capital city, which was mostly undeveloped at the time. In the second installment of the series he wrote about the Mall. Although it looked like a cow pasture, Freeman felt that it would be relatively easy and inexpensive to make a space which would rival the avenues and parks of Europe.

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Did you know that an escaped rooster disrupted one of President Nixon's Inaugural events?

The Smithsonian Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History) hosted one of the five Inaugural Balls for Richard Nixon's second Presidential Inauguration in January 1973. During the party, a rooster escaped from an exhibit on early American farm life and started bothering some of the guests. Secretary of the Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley rescued the rooster and returned it to its exhibition, but not before a newspaper photographer caught the wayward bird on camera.

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25 years ago the Mall was the site of a two day celebration, America's Reunion on the Mall!

This festival celebrating American cultural diversity was held on the days leading up to the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton. It was organized by the Inaugural Committee, with support from the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the National Park Service. Three food tents offered cuisine from all over the United States. There were multiple stages where musical performances were held throughout the day for all three days of the festival, as well as a kickoff concert at the Lincoln Memorial headlined by major artists including Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Michael Bolton.

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On this day 95 years ago, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was completed.

Stretching approximately a third of a mile from end to end, the reflecting pool lies between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Built in 1920 on marshland, the pool gradually sank, leaking into the surrounding land. In 2012, the pool was reconstructed. It now holds nearly seven million gallons of water and utilizes a sustainable circulation system pulling water from the nearby Tidal Basin.

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This proposed memorial plans to honor the contributions of African Americans during the Revolutionary War.

After authorization expired for the Black Revolutionary War Patriots Memorial, Maurice Barboza and Lena Santos Ferguson restarted their campaign to honor African-American service during the Revolutionary War. Congress authorized the National Liberty Memorial in 2013 that will be located at the corner of 14th Street and Independence Avenue near the Department of Agriculture. The Memorial will commemorate African American soldiers, sailors, and civilian volunteers, and also honor enslaved people who escaped or petitioned for their freedom during the war. By 2020, organizers must raise money to design and build the monument.

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Did you know that an determined thief once stole the lighting rod points from the Washington Monument?

During the fall and winter months of 1934, the Washington Monument was prepped for repairs and cleaning, due to cracking at the base. Scaffolding was built around the 550-foot monument to allow the workers to make the repairs with Public Works Administration funding. The restoration lasted 140 days, during which time the Monument remained open to visitors. However, on December 28th, 1934, someone scaled the scaffolding to remove 107 of the 170 gold-plated, platinum-tipped lightning rod points from the top of the monument. The points were valued at $8 each, which totaled $856.

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"Washington's strangest visitor gets an aerial view of Washington Monument and the Capitol."

In December 1928, Harold F. Pitcairn piloted an autogiro from Philadelphia to Washington, DC to introduce this new aircraft to Americans. It was reportedly the first extended autogiro flight in the US. Pitcairn was an airplane manufacturer. Paramount Pictures captured the flight over the Mall in this newsreel. It was part of Pitcairn's marketing efforts to sell autogiros as personal aircraft to the public and policymakers.

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Before it was the National Mall, this space was a hub of activity for DC residents and visitors.

This illustration accompanied an article discussing efforts to restart construction on the Washington Monument, with hopes to complete the monument by the national centennial in 1876. The point of view of the illustration is from the Mall's baseball grounds, now the White House Ellipse. In between the baseball grounds and the monument is the Washington Canal, with sailboats and barges in it, possibly carrying goods to market in the city. The people in the illustration include wealthy white men as well as black and white laborers.

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See the faces of the builders of the Washington Monument in this article from 1884!

The Washington Post published an article highlighting the contributions of laborers who built the Washington Monument. The article included an illustration of the individuals profiled and revealed their occupational backgrounds. Some worked on ships and others on railroads before joining the Monument's construction crews. One of the workers highlighted was African American concrete mixer Lewis O'Brien. The images in the center of this illustration represent the entrance to the monument (left), and Superintendent P. H. McLaughlin testing the elevator with some workmen (right).

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The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry was founded on this day 150 years ago.

This small plaque along the walking path on the Mall at Fourth Street and Madison is the only private monument on the Mall, dedicated on September 9, 1951. It commemorates the founding of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, a national agriculture association. The Grange, whose purpose is to help give farm families a political voice, was founded December 4, 1867. The plaque names the seven original founders of the association: Oliver Hudson Kelley, William Saunders, Aaron B. Grosh, John R. Thompson, Francis M. McDowell, William M. Ireland, and John Trimble.

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On this day in 1907 the last train left the Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station.

The Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station was built in 1873, over the old Tiber Creek and Washington City Canal waterway on the present-day site of the National Gallery of Art. Building contractors sank 35-foot piles to secure the foundation of the building on the waterlogged ground. Made of red brick pressed with black mortar, the building's three towers, elaborate roofs, ornamental iron, and red, blue, and green slates exemplified Victorian Gothic architecture. President James A. Garfield was assassinated at the station on July 2, 1881. The station was demolished in 1907 after nearby Union Station was built and the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad consolidated with other railroad companies.

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Thirty-five years ago, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall was dedicated on the National Mall.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall opened in 1982 to honor more than 58,000 American casualties lost in the Vietnam War. Two black walls form a wide V that list the names of each person missing or dead in chronological order. Diamonds appear beside names of the men and women killed, while the names of missing soldiers are marked with a cross. Kiosks near the memorial help visitors to locate names on the wall. Since it opened, visitors have left letters or other mementos for loved ones at the Wall. The Wall is 1 of 3 memorials honoring those who served in the Vietnam War.

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Did you know a mass wedding for same-sex couples was held near the National Mall? It took place on this day 30 years ago!

On October 10, 1987, 2,000 same-sex couples pledged their vows in a mass wedding behind the National Museum of Natural History and in front of the Internal Revenue Service building. The location allowed the group to protest the lack of recognition of same-sex domestic partners in the US tax code. Organizers also admitted that location was the only area where they could secure a permit to gather. Nearly 5,000 protesters filled the streets to watch or participate in the mass wedding presided over by minister Dina Bachelor. "The Wedding" was 1 event in a 6-day demonstration known as the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

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"Beautiful banks of Tiber! delightful rambles! happy hours! How like a dream do ye now appear. Those trees, those shrubs, those flowers are gone."

In this passage, Margaret Bayard Smith describes the Mall as it was when she first arrived in Washington in 1800, a plain covered in trees, shrubs, and flowers. By the time she wrote this passage in 1837, the banks of the Tiber had been transformed into the Washington Canal, and the groves had been harvested for timber for the new city.

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