WASHINGTON (Amazing America) — It is one of the most recognizable obelisks in the world, but did you know the Washington Monument we know today is not the first one?
Amazing America Kevin Kotwas shares some hidden history as we count down to America’s 250th birthday.
Believe it or not, one of our most revered American monuments might have had a more Greek look if sculptor Horatio Greenough had his way. That’s right, our most famous Founding Father, George Washington himself, would have been draped in a toga like the Greek god Zeus as the most lasting monument to our first Commander-in-Chief.
Inspired by Zeus – The pose was modeled after the famous ancient Greek statue of Olympian Zeus by Phidias. (Courtesy: Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History)
In fact, Greenough completed the sculpture in 1840, eight years before construction began on the Washington Monument. It was inspired by the famous lost statue called “Olympian Zeus” by the ancient Greek sculptor Phidias and portrays Washington as a classical hero.
Greenough’s statue was quite a menagerie of the Old World colliding with the new. It featured the Greek god Apollo, a baby Hercules wrestling a snake, along with figures of a First American and Christopher Columbus.
Horatio Greenough’s sculpture of George Washington is on display at the National Museum of American History. (Courtesy: WikiCommons/National Museum of American History)
The statue was actually put on display in 1841 in the Capitol Rotunda. But after a massive outcry, the “half-naked,” toga-clad George Washington statue was taken down only two years after it was first installed.
The statue was installed on the Capitol grounds, where decay set in until it was transferred in 1908 to the care of the Smithsonian, then sat outside on the Capitol grounds for the next 60 years, exposed to the elements. It has been on display to the public at the National Museum of American History since 1964.
Like many artists not lauded during their time, Horatio Greenough’s George Washington statue is now recognized as a masterpiece of American Neoclassical art. Greenough, a Boston native, is widely known as a pioneering American sculptor.
As for the current Washington Monument, it was dedicated on February 21, 1885.
View of the Washington Monument in the background with cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin near the Washington Monument on March 24, 2026.
(Courtesy: Getty/Kevin Dietsch)
Have you been to our nation’s capital? If so, what is your favorite statue?
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