"The Whole Monument Trembled:"
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Enthusiastically Received...by Some
It was 12 degrees Fahrenheit on dedication day. Public Domain.
At the time, the Washington Monument was the tallest structure in the world. It had also only recently been completed. In fact, the dedication ceremony had just occurred a few months previously on February 21st. Because the monument had taken decades to build and complete, the dedication had been celebrated with “great rejoicing.”
The only negative note around the dedication ceremony was the death of Horace Capron who died from a stroke believed to have been related to a cold he contracted at the dedication ceremony. Capron, who had been Commissioner of Agriculture under President Ulysses Grant, had participated in the ceremony that had marked the laying of the cornerstone of the monument in 1848. Although the coincidence of Capron’s death at the dedication ceremony was much remarked upon, he was 80 years old and his death could not have been a complete surprise to many.
In the months following its dedication, the monument continued to attract attention, both positive and negative. The presidential inauguration, attended by what was estimated to be 50,000 people, had even featured fireworks which had magnificently illuminated the monument. This first vision of the monument with fireworks in the background had been “enthusiastically received the vast crowd.”
But critics, including Oscar Wilde, were not so enthusiastic about the monument’s very plain design. Americans might sniff---and they did so---that “much of European architecture is ruined or injured” by excessive ornamentation but the various criticisms of the monument’s very plain design clearly stung, as they were repeated in the nation’s many different newspapers.
The only negative note around the dedication ceremony was the death of Horace Capron who died from a stroke believed to have been related to a cold he contracted at the dedication ceremony. Capron, who had been Commissioner of Agriculture under President Ulysses Grant, had participated in the ceremony that had marked the laying of the cornerstone of the monument in 1848. Although the coincidence of Capron’s death at the dedication ceremony was much remarked upon, he was 80 years old and his death could not have been a complete surprise to many.
In the months following its dedication, the monument continued to attract attention, both positive and negative. The presidential inauguration, attended by what was estimated to be 50,000 people, had even featured fireworks which had magnificently illuminated the monument. This first vision of the monument with fireworks in the background had been “enthusiastically received the vast crowd.”
But critics, including Oscar Wilde, were not so enthusiastic about the monument’s very plain design. Americans might sniff---and they did so---that “much of European architecture is ruined or injured” by excessive ornamentation but the various criticisms of the monument’s very plain design clearly stung, as they were repeated in the nation’s many different newspapers.
"A Ball of Fire"
 Putting the aluminum apex in place in 1884, Harpers Weekly, 1884
The storm which struck Washington that June day was extremely unusual. One witness claimed that it was not simply lightening and thunder that rocked the city that afternoon. Located in a “small wooden building” near the monument, this witness insisted that he had seen, from his window, “a ball of fire which was as large as his fist coming directly toward the window out of which he was looking.” Other witnesses, however, claimed not to have seen this.
What was clear was that the sound produced by the thunder was enormous. Two men, both of whom were inside the monument when the storm struck, said that the sound resembled the “discharge of a great number of canon.” More terrifying, “the whole monument trembled.” Given that the monument was, at the time, the world’s tallest manmade structure, the shifting or trembling of the obelisk must have raised concerns about the stability of the building itself. To those standing on the ground, the actual damage to the monument itself was invisible to the naked eye. Using a telescope, however, observers could see that “one of the stones just below the capstone was split from top to bottom.” Two inches wide, the crack ran four feet down the monument. Along with this crack, “a small corner of” the capstone itself had fallen off the monument; these were the fragments found forty feet from the monument itself. |
Planning the Repairs
Capstone depicted in Science, 1885
A plan to repair and protect the monument from future strikes needed to be made quickly to reassure the American public. Similarly, the reasons for the strike needed to be understood to ensure that Americans were not dissuaded from building structures of this type in the future.
Colonel Thomas Lincoln Casey, the engineer in charge of the monument’s construction, worked with three other engineers, one a professor from Baltimore and the other two from the U.S. Navy and the Signal Service, to recommend additions to the building that would protect it in the future.
By August 29th, the work installing an “electric lightening apparatus in the Washington Monument” to protect it from future storms had been completed.
However, as one newspaper reported rather glumly “the public is not admitted, there being no fund with which to run the elevator for the accommodation of the public.”
To get an update on the damage done to the Washington Monument during the 2011 earthquake, click here to read an article on this topic that was published in The Washington Post on June 9, 2012.
Colonel Thomas Lincoln Casey, the engineer in charge of the monument’s construction, worked with three other engineers, one a professor from Baltimore and the other two from the U.S. Navy and the Signal Service, to recommend additions to the building that would protect it in the future.
By August 29th, the work installing an “electric lightening apparatus in the Washington Monument” to protect it from future storms had been completed.
However, as one newspaper reported rather glumly “the public is not admitted, there being no fund with which to run the elevator for the accommodation of the public.”
To get an update on the damage done to the Washington Monument during the 2011 earthquake, click here to read an article on this topic that was published in The Washington Post on June 9, 2012.
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