On December 6, 1884, in Washington, D.C., workers placed a nine-
inch aluminum pyramid atop a tower of white marble, completing
the construction of an impressive monument to the city’s namesake
and the nation’s first president, George Washington. As early as
1783, the infant U.S. Congress decided that a statue of George
Washington, the great Revolutionary War general, should be
placed near the site of the new Congressional building,
wherever it might be.

After then-President Washington asked him to lay out federal
capital on the Potomac River in 1791, architect Pierre L ‘Enfant
left a place for the statue at the western end of the sweeping
National Mall (near the monument’s present location). It wasn’t
until 1832, however–33 years after Washington’s death–that
anyone really did anything about the monument.