It took nearly 40 years to build a tribute to the first U.S. president. It was stalled by a lack of funds and, at one point, occupied by a political fringe group. Few structures represent the United States as powerfully as the Washington Monument.

The 36-to-39-year construction saga of the Washington Monument (1848–1884) was plagued by a "perfect storm" of financial, political, and structural hurdles. Initially, the project relied on private donations gathered by the Washington National Monument Society, but funds quickly ran dry. In 1854, the project ground to a halt after the "Know-Nothing" political party seized control of the society in a nativist protest against a block of marble donated by Pope Pius IX. This political occupation, followed by the outbreak of the American Civil War, left the monument as a 156-foot "stub" for over two decades. When work finally resumed in 1876 with federal funding, engineers discovered the original foundation was insufficient for the planned height, requiring a massive, complex reinforcement of the base with concrete. This long delay is still visible today; the slight change in the color of the marble about one-third of the way up marks where construction stopped and later resumed with stone from a different quarry.