President George Washington chose the site of the nation’s capital in 1791, a city that would bear his name. He hired Pierre L’Enfant to design the District of Columbia. L’Enfant grasped that the new city needed a solid supply of building materials for the stately buildings he planned. He purchased an existing quarry along the Potomac River near Aquia, Virginia—a place that became known as the Public Quarry on Government Island. The stone quarried there was Virginia freestone, a pale yellow sandstone that was used for most of the early public buildings in the capital, including the Boundary
...more
