LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Washington Monument: Washington National Monument Society
built 440 days ago
For 20 years, lack of funds and loss of support for the Washington National Monument Society left the obelisk incomplete at a height of about 156 feet. Finally, in 1876, President Ulysses Grant authorized the federal government to finish construction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took over the project two years later.
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In 1848, sixty-four years after Congress had made the first proposal for a memorial to the first President, it granted a 37-acre site for it to the Washington National Monument Society. It was the same site, Reservation No. 2, on which L'Enfant had planned the [equestrian] memorial. Soil tests... showed the intended spot due south of the White House and due West of the Capital to be too marshy. A site about 100 yards to the southeast was chosen, thus altering both the monument's north-south alignment with the White House and its east-west alignment with the Capitol.
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In 1833, the Washington National Monument Society was founded on order to raise money for the monument. It wasn't until 1848 before the construction started and due to financial problems it took 36 years before the obelisk was finished.
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Washington National Monument Society