Bartholdi Fountain - A Centennial Survivor
Photo: Daderot, CC0 (cropped)
A stop on Washington DC National Mall Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.
The cast-iron fountain in the middle of Bartholdi Park stands 30 feet tall and weighs about 15 tons. Around its base, three 11-foot sea nymphs hold up a large basin, with water spilling down over shells and fish.
After its debut at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, Congress bought it in 1877 for 6,000 dollars on the advice of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. It first stood on the Mall, where the Botanic Garden then was. When the garden moved in the late 1920s, the fountain was taken apart and stored, and it was put back together here in 1932.
Between 2008 and 2011 it was fully dismantled and restored, with a protective zinc coating on the iron and new pumps. It is lit at night.
From here, head back across the street to the stop and on to the Mall.
More on Wikipedia: Bartholdi Fountain · Frederic Auguste Bartholdi · Frederick Law Olmsted
Stops on this tour
- Washington Monument
- National Museum of African American History and Cu
- National Museum of American History
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- National Gallery of Art
- United States Capitol
- United States Botanic Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Air and Space Museum
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- The Smithsonian Institution Building - The Castle
- Freer Gallery of Art
- Jefferson Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Korean War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- White House Ellipse
- White House
- Lafayette Square