44
Number of years it took Congress to approve the final project after passing an initial bill to create a memorial in 1867.
10 feet
Planned height of the Lincoln statue. It was later increased to 19 feet so it wouldn’t seem too small in the space. In the unlikely event Abe were to stand up, the statue would be 28 feet tall.
$3,045,400
Cost to build the memorial, about $51 million today. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, dedicated in 2020, reportedly cost about $150 million.
2 million
Number of Americans who listened to the 1922 dedication ceremony on the radio. Some 50,000 people attended in person.
5,792,331
Number of visitors in 2021, making it the National Park Service’s most popular DC monument.
This article appears in the May 2022 issue of Washingtonian.
Before becoming Research Editor, Damare Baker was an Editorial Fellow and Assistant Editor for Washingtonian. She has previously written for Voice of America and The Hill. She is a graduate of Georgetown University, where she studied international relations, Korean, and journalism.
