Free previewStop 2 of National Mall Walking Tour
A Castle for a Man Who Never Came
You're on Jefferson Drive, on the south side of the Mall, and the building in front of you looks like it wandered in from medieval England. That's the Smithsonian Castle. Look at its color first. Almost everything else on the Mall is white marble or pale granite. This is a deep, rusty red. Now find the towers. There are nine of them, all different heights. The tallest, on the side facing you, rises about 145 feet.
The man this building exists for never saw it, and never set foot in the United States.
His name was James Smithson, a British chemist. He was born in secret in Paris around 1765, the illegitimate son of an English duke, and he spent his life drifting around Europe with a blowpipe and a talent for analyzing tiny samples.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 2 of National Mall Walking Tour (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
