Zero Milestone
Zero Milestone is a monument in Washington, DC that was intended to be the first milestone from which to measure all distances on American roads. Nowadays only the streets of the Washington, DC area are calculated from here.
Location
The memorial stands south of the White House on the northern edge of The Ellipse , within President's Park . On top of the monument is a bronze 16-petalled compass rose with a very small, matt pyramid in the middle, the tip of which is used as a measuring point for the land survey . Coordinates: 38 ° 53 '42.4 " N , 77 ° 2' 11.6" W.
description
The monolith designed by Horace W. Peaslee has a footprint of 0.4 m² and is 1.2 meters high. It is made from Pre-Cambrian granite from Milford, Massachusetts. Its color is light pink to greenish gray with black biotite stains. The bronze disc on the milestone is an adaptation of the wind or compass roses used in the ancient Portolan maps. From which lines led to all points of the then known world - the prototype of the seafarer's compass.
The monument has the following engravings on the side surfaces:
- North: ZERO MILESTONE (0 milestone)
- East: STARTING POINT OF SECOND TRANSCONTINENTAL MOTOR CONVOY OVER THE BANKHEAD HIGHWAY, JUNE 14, 1920 (start point of 2nd motorized transcontinental military convoy on Bankhead Highway June 14, 1920)
- South: POINT FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF DISTANCES FROM WASHINGTON ON HIGHWAYS OF THE UNITED STATES (starting point for measuring distances to Washington on the highways of the United States)
- West: STARTING POINT OF FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL MOTOR CONVOY OVER THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, JULY 7, 1919 (Starting point of the 1st motorized transcontinental military convoy on Lincoln Highway July 7, 1919)
history
In his design for Washington, Pierre Charles L'Enfant planned a pillar 1 mile east of the Capitol from which all distances to locations across the continent are measured. Instead, in 1804 the "Jefferson Stone" was erected on the longitude of the White House exactly west of the Capitol (119 m WNW from the center of the Washington Monument ) to mark the Washington Meridian (77 ° 02 '12.0 ").
The current Zero Milestone Monument was erected on June 7, 1919 by lawyer Dr. SM Johnson officially proposed. He was inspired by the golden milestone in the Roman Forum in ancient Rome . On July 7, 1919, a makeshift milestone was inaugurated on the ellipse south of the White House as part of the celebration of the start of the first military convoy to San Francisco. On June 5, 1920, the United States Congress authorized the Secretary of War to build the monument, although the design had to be approved by the Fine Arts Commission and the authorities would incur no costs. Dr. Johnson took care of the details and raised funds for the design and construction. The final Zero Milestone was inaugurated with a ceremony on June 4, 1923.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Washington Monument GPS Height Modernization Project ( Memento from February 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Zero Milestone - Washington, DC . US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Retrieved March 21, 2007.