Washington Monument

The Washington Monument is a marble, granite and bluestone gneiss obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to honor George Washington to a design by the architect Robert Mills. Construction began in 1848 but stalled for over two decades amid funding shortages and the Civil War, and when work resumed under the Army Corps of Engineers the new marble came from a different quarry, leaving a visible color change partway up the shaft that remains today. Completed in 1884 and opened to the public in 1888, the monument rises 555 feet 5 and one-eighth inches, making it the tallest stone structure and the tallest obelisk in the world, and it briefly stood as the tallest structure of any kind until the Eiffel Tower surpassed it the following year.