#11 National Park Service Obscure Memorials Tour
Since Hurricane Florence is taking the long way around to DC, we got to spend a very pleasant breezy afternoon on the free Obscure Memorials of the National Mall tour with National Park Service Ranger Matt Hornberger.
First of all, let me laud the NPS for offering amazing free history tours - I learned so much about so many sites that I had overlooked for the past 7 years in DC on this 2 hour 2.5 mi tour. You can check out their diverse tour schedules on the Calendar of Events website for the National Mall and Memorial Parks and just show up. Another option is Free Tours By Foot DC where you do need to reserve a spot in advance. In DC, there's always something more to learn about our history, and it's usually much juicier than fiction...
So without further ado, here in order are the obscure memorials we visited, with the most interesting tidbits from each:
Scottish by birth and an all around naval badass, John Paul Jones is most famous for fighting for the U.S. navy during the Revolutionary War. While battling a British ship, his own ship was on fire and had eight feet of water in its hold - burning and sinking at the same time. The British asked for his surrender, and he replied, "Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!" His sailors boarded the British ship to fight hand to hand and take it over! He then watched his old ship sink from the deck of his conquered prize!
A Japanese lantern from the 1600's was gifted to the U.S. by Japan in 1954, this sits right next to the tidal basin among cherry blossom trees. Each spring, DC has a Cherry Blossom Festival where the tidal basin and many residential neighborhoods are in bloom, and we celebrate our connection with Japan. A Cherry Blossom Queen is picked from one of the 50 states by lottery, and she gets to light this lantern to mark the opening of the festival.
In DC, you always just hear that the cherry blossoms are a gift from Japan. The more interesting backstory is that Mrs. Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, the sister of 3 U.S. diplomats and a world traveler herself who adored Japan, lobbied the U.S. government for decades starting in 1885 to plant cherry blossoms on the reclaimed land along the river. She fundraised on her own and then in 1909 wrote to First Lady Taft, who had also lived in Japan, to convince her to was instrumental in organizing the gift. In 1910, the mayor of Tokyo gifted DC 2,000 trees, but most of them had to be burned in a huge bonfire on the National Mall because they arrived with diseases and pests that would have killed off the elm trees already planted. The few non-contaminated saplings were planted in an isolated corner of Hains Point. In 1912, a second attempt of 3,000 trees were sent, and these were successfully planted at the Tidal Basin, the White House, and in parks around DC.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the trees were threatened and some cut down as a symbol of the Japanese enemy. During the war, the trees were rebranded as the "oriental" flowering trees. In Japan, Tokyo was heavily firebombed and lost many of its groves of cherry trees. After the war, the U.S. sent specimens from the gifted trees back to Japan so that they could restore their parks with the same genetic lineages.
Even more history can be found on the National Park Service History of the Cherry Trees page.
There is no National World War I memorial in DC, but there is this memorial engraved with the names of the 499 DC residents who died in service in WWI.
Now the story takes an unexpected turn... In 1932, during the Great Depression, unemployed WWI veterans came to DC to demand the immediate payment of a bonus that the government was going to pay them in 1945 - they were called the "Bonus Army." This DC WWI memorial became a gathering place for them to make speeches. President Hoover refused their early bonus request and sent in the army, led by General Douglas MacArthur, to clear out the WWI veteran encampments which housed the veterans and their wives and children, killing six people.
The Bonus Army marched again on Washington in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt Administration, but FDR chose to send First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt out to negotiate with them. They did not get the bonus then, but they did get jobs with the Civilian Conservation Corps. Congress then moved up their bonus date to 1936.
The DC WWI Memorial was used as a bandstand in the 1930's and 1940's then fell into disrepair. Because of its proximity to the 2011 Martin Luther King Museum, it was cleaned up. On the weekends, it is often booked for weddings - as it was today!
Check out historical photos of the DC War Memorial here.
John Ericsson was a Swedish engineer and inventor who immigrated to the U.S. in1839. His invention of the screw propellor for ships is still used today! He also built the U.S.S. Monitor, the first ironclad warship commissioned by the Union Navy which helped blockade the Confederacy from receiving arms and supplies from abroad during the Civil War. There is always a U.S. navy vessel named after him.
Learn more at the NPS website here.
The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace are four statues that decorate the roads behind the Lincoln Memorial, the entrances to Memorial Bridge (war) and Rock Creek Parkway (peace). They were originally designed in the 1930's by American sculptors, but as World War II ramped up, they were not actually made because of lack of funding and scarcity of bronze to cast them.
In 1949, the government of Italy expressed its interest in casting the four statues - U.S. Marshall Plan funds were helping them to rebuild foundries after the war. In 1950, the plaster casts were shipped to Italy, and the statues were made in Milan (Valor), Florence (Sacrifice), Naples (Music and Harvest), and Rome (Aspiration and Literature) as a gift to the U.S. of the Italian people in gratitude for American assistance in rebuilding Italy after World War II.
I have been to Lincoln Memorial dozens of times, but I had never noticed this plaque adding Alaska and Hawaii to the Lincoln Memorial. At the top of the Lincoln are two rows of state names; one row lists the names of the 48 states existing at the time of the building's completion in 1922, and the other has the 36 states in the United States at the time of Lincoln's death. Since there was no space to add Alaska and Hawaii to the building itself, they get this plaque on the ground
Off to the side of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is the Vietnam Women's Memorial. There are only eight women's names engraved on the wall, all nurses. This 1993 statue honors all of the women serving during the war in nursing, administration, intelligence, and humanitarian work.
Learn more on the Vietnam Women's Memorial website.
This one really surprised me! On the National Mall there is a cute lake full of ducks that I've walked through many times, and I never found this bridge to a little island in the lake that is home to the Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial, opened in 1986. 56 stones organized by state show the signature of each signer in gold as well as an engraving of their name and occupation.
Because of the island location, you can't take a great picture of the full memorial, so just go see it! Details can be found on the NPS website here.
Another place I've walked by a million times is the Lock Keeper's House. There was once a grand plan to build 400 miles of canals from DC to the Ohio River for shipping. This house just below the White House was where the lock keeper lived with his family. He controlled the gate to enter and exit the canal and collected tolls from the users. Eventually, the canal became impractical and it was filled in and covered with streets.
The Lock Keeper's House has been moved twice to allow road expansions, but it just this year opened to the public (sometimes). Our tour guide had the key to let us in where some informational posters are and the air conditioning felt amazing!
Right outside the house is an old mounting block for ladies to get on their horses sidesaddle. As a horsewoman, I had to take a photo of the National Mall ladies' mounting block ;)
Last but not least, we saw Thomas Jefferson's Pier Stone, a prime meridian marker from 1804. This was Jefferson's attempt to get mapmakers to use DC as the prime meridian on their maps. The effort failed, however, because the best maps came out of England with Greenwich as the prime meridian and there was no appetite to fight it.
Jefferson's stone was lost and then found and put into its current location near the Washington Monument in 1889 in perfect alignment with the White House and the Jefferson Memorial!
Item 11 Completed 9/15/18
2/40 items complete = 5%
First of all, let me laud the NPS for offering amazing free history tours - I learned so much about so many sites that I had overlooked for the past 7 years in DC on this 2 hour 2.5 mi tour. You can check out their diverse tour schedules on the Calendar of Events website for the National Mall and Memorial Parks and just show up. Another option is Free Tours By Foot DC where you do need to reserve a spot in advance. In DC, there's always something more to learn about our history, and it's usually much juicier than fiction...
So without further ado, here in order are the obscure memorials we visited, with the most interesting tidbits from each:
 |
| John Paul Jones Memorial |
Scottish by birth and an all around naval badass, John Paul Jones is most famous for fighting for the U.S. navy during the Revolutionary War. While battling a British ship, his own ship was on fire and had eight feet of water in its hold - burning and sinking at the same time. The British asked for his surrender, and he replied, "Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!" His sailors boarded the British ship to fight hand to hand and take it over! He then watched his old ship sink from the deck of his conquered prize!
 |
| Japanese Lantern |
A Japanese lantern from the 1600's was gifted to the U.S. by Japan in 1954, this sits right next to the tidal basin among cherry blossom trees. Each spring, DC has a Cherry Blossom Festival where the tidal basin and many residential neighborhoods are in bloom, and we celebrate our connection with Japan. A Cherry Blossom Queen is picked from one of the 50 states by lottery, and she gets to light this lantern to mark the opening of the festival.
In DC, you always just hear that the cherry blossoms are a gift from Japan. The more interesting backstory is that Mrs. Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, the sister of 3 U.S. diplomats and a world traveler herself who adored Japan, lobbied the U.S. government for decades starting in 1885 to plant cherry blossoms on the reclaimed land along the river. She fundraised on her own and then in 1909 wrote to First Lady Taft, who had also lived in Japan, to convince her to was instrumental in organizing the gift. In 1910, the mayor of Tokyo gifted DC 2,000 trees, but most of them had to be burned in a huge bonfire on the National Mall because they arrived with diseases and pests that would have killed off the elm trees already planted. The few non-contaminated saplings were planted in an isolated corner of Hains Point. In 1912, a second attempt of 3,000 trees were sent, and these were successfully planted at the Tidal Basin, the White House, and in parks around DC.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the trees were threatened and some cut down as a symbol of the Japanese enemy. During the war, the trees were rebranded as the "oriental" flowering trees. In Japan, Tokyo was heavily firebombed and lost many of its groves of cherry trees. After the war, the U.S. sent specimens from the gifted trees back to Japan so that they could restore their parks with the same genetic lineages.
Even more history can be found on the National Park Service History of the Cherry Trees page.
 |
| District of Columbia World War I Memorial |
There is no National World War I memorial in DC, but there is this memorial engraved with the names of the 499 DC residents who died in service in WWI.
Now the story takes an unexpected turn... In 1932, during the Great Depression, unemployed WWI veterans came to DC to demand the immediate payment of a bonus that the government was going to pay them in 1945 - they were called the "Bonus Army." This DC WWI memorial became a gathering place for them to make speeches. President Hoover refused their early bonus request and sent in the army, led by General Douglas MacArthur, to clear out the WWI veteran encampments which housed the veterans and their wives and children, killing six people.
The Bonus Army marched again on Washington in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt Administration, but FDR chose to send First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt out to negotiate with them. They did not get the bonus then, but they did get jobs with the Civilian Conservation Corps. Congress then moved up their bonus date to 1936.
The DC WWI Memorial was used as a bandstand in the 1930's and 1940's then fell into disrepair. Because of its proximity to the 2011 Martin Luther King Museum, it was cleaned up. On the weekends, it is often booked for weddings - as it was today!
Check out historical photos of the DC War Memorial here.
 |
| John Ericsson Memorial |
Learn more at the NPS website here.
The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace
The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace are four statues that decorate the roads behind the Lincoln Memorial, the entrances to Memorial Bridge (war) and Rock Creek Parkway (peace). They were originally designed in the 1930's by American sculptors, but as World War II ramped up, they were not actually made because of lack of funding and scarcity of bronze to cast them.
In 1949, the government of Italy expressed its interest in casting the four statues - U.S. Marshall Plan funds were helping them to rebuild foundries after the war. In 1950, the plaster casts were shipped to Italy, and the statues were made in Milan (Valor), Florence (Sacrifice), Naples (Music and Harvest), and Rome (Aspiration and Literature) as a gift to the U.S. of the Italian people in gratitude for American assistance in rebuilding Italy after World War II.
Addition of Alaska and Hawaii to the Lincoln Memorial
I have been to Lincoln Memorial dozens of times, but I had never noticed this plaque adding Alaska and Hawaii to the Lincoln Memorial. At the top of the Lincoln are two rows of state names; one row lists the names of the 48 states existing at the time of the building's completion in 1922, and the other has the 36 states in the United States at the time of Lincoln's death. Since there was no space to add Alaska and Hawaii to the building itself, they get this plaque on the ground
 |
| Vietnam Women's Memorial |
Off to the side of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is the Vietnam Women's Memorial. There are only eight women's names engraved on the wall, all nurses. This 1993 statue honors all of the women serving during the war in nursing, administration, intelligence, and humanitarian work.
Learn more on the Vietnam Women's Memorial website.
 |
| View from the Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial |
 |
| Entrance to the Memorial across a simple wooden bridge |
This one really surprised me! On the National Mall there is a cute lake full of ducks that I've walked through many times, and I never found this bridge to a little island in the lake that is home to the Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial, opened in 1986. 56 stones organized by state show the signature of each signer in gold as well as an engraving of their name and occupation.
 |
| What the Signatures Look Like |
Because of the island location, you can't take a great picture of the full memorial, so just go see it! Details can be found on the NPS website here.
 |
| The Lock Keeper's house |
 |
| Interior of Lock Keeper's house where he and his family lived |
Another place I've walked by a million times is the Lock Keeper's House. There was once a grand plan to build 400 miles of canals from DC to the Ohio River for shipping. This house just below the White House was where the lock keeper lived with his family. He controlled the gate to enter and exit the canal and collected tolls from the users. Eventually, the canal became impractical and it was filled in and covered with streets.
The Lock Keeper's House has been moved twice to allow road expansions, but it just this year opened to the public (sometimes). Our tour guide had the key to let us in where some informational posters are and the air conditioning felt amazing!
 |
| The ladies' mounting block on the National Mall |
Right outside the house is an old mounting block for ladies to get on their horses sidesaddle. As a horsewoman, I had to take a photo of the National Mall ladies' mounting block ;)
 |
| Thomas Jefferson's Pier Stone |
Last but not least, we saw Thomas Jefferson's Pier Stone, a prime meridian marker from 1804. This was Jefferson's attempt to get mapmakers to use DC as the prime meridian on their maps. The effort failed, however, because the best maps came out of England with Greenwich as the prime meridian and there was no appetite to fight it.
Jefferson's stone was lost and then found and put into its current location near the Washington Monument in 1889 in perfect alignment with the White House and the Jefferson Memorial!
Item 11 Completed 9/15/18
2/40 items complete = 5%
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