Washington Monument visible color change marking a construction pause

Construction of the Washington Monument began in 1848, was paused in the 1850s, and resumed in the 1870s; the interruption and the use of stone from different sources produced a visible horizontal color change in the monument’s exterior masonry about one-third of the way up. The change is a documented physical effect of the monument’s phased construction history and is noted on National Park Service interpretive materials. Visitors and historians commonly point to the band as evidence of the 19th-century construction pause.