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A Monument to Democracy
The McMillan Plan of 1901-1902
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The Mall in the 1892. In 1901, when Senator McMillan (R-MI) organized the McMillan Commission, the Mall was
heavily forested and the B&O Railroad tracks crossed at the foot of Capitol Hill.
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The McMillan Commission Plan of 1901-1902 revived and extended the L'Enfant concept of the Mall as a broad and open vista. The Commissioners, who included renowned City Beautiful architects Charles McKim and Daniel Burnham, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and sculptor Augustus St.-Gaudens, envisioned the Mall as a continuous green park framed by rows of elms and white classical museum buildings.
The Plan extended the Mall to the west and south to form new parkland, Potomac Park. The east-west axis extension beyond the Washington Monument became the site of the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pools. The new north-south White House-Washington Monument axis included the Tidal Basin and land now occupied by the Jefferson Memorial.
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The McMillan Plan of 1901-1902. The kite-shaped McMillan Plan conceived of the Mall as a formal park and extended
its reach westward and southward over former river flats, to create the sites for the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.
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The reclaimed McMillan Plan land in East and West Potomac Park is also the location of recent memorials, including the Vietnam and Korean veterans memorials, and the FDR Memorial.
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McMillan Commission concepts for the cross-axis of the Mall - aerial view |
Next: The 20th Century
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