Thomas Jefferson Memorial

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial sits on a circular stone foundation with a shallow dome rising above a ring of Ionic columns. It holds a nineteen-foot bronze statue of Jefferson, who stares toward the White House. When the project began in nineteen thirty-eight, architects had to blast through a massive sea wall to anchor the structure into the marshy soil. One night, workers discovered a sunken boat from the mid-nineteenth century embedded in the mud, a relic left behind by a forgotten cargo haul.