Amidst Washington D.C.’s grand monuments lie overlooked relics of its founding: the Boundary Stones.
In 1791-1792, a team including surveyor Andrew Ellicott and the brilliant self-taught astronomer Benjamin Banneker, meticulously marked the original 100-square-mile federal district. Forty sandstone markers, each weighing about half a ton, were placed at one-mile intervals along the square’s perimeter.
Today, 36 of these original stones stand, often in surprising locations – backyards, parks or forgotten corners. These unassuming stones are, in fact, the oldest federally placed monuments in the United States, a silent testament to the precise and ambitious vision that shaped the nation’s capital.
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