Everywhere is Somewhere to See

George Vanderbilt began building the 250-room Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1889, a year after he traveled to the city on a family vacation with his mother. Roughly 1,000 people worked on the project, ranging from local laborers to internationally known artists. Indiana limestone, Italian marble and other supplies were shipped into Asheville by rail. Vanderbilt built a private railroad track from the village depot to the construction site, while an on-site kiln produced up to 32,000 bricks daily, and a woodworking factory supplied oak and walnut for the house’s floors and walls. The house was completed in 1895 and opened to the public in March 1930.

The World’s Largest Chair was first built in the early 1920s when the city was know known as “The Chair Town.” That was in large part to the Thomasville Chair Co. The original chair, a 30-foot-tall replica of a Duncan Phyfe armchair, was erected in 1922. The chair — made of lumber and Swiss steer hide — was scrapped in 1936, less than two decades after it originally appeared. However, circa 1950, local organizations built a new chair out of concrete. The city apparently covered the cost of the base while contributions covered the cost to construct the chair. The chair was refurbished in 1993 and re-dedicated in 2001. Over the years, the chair has been considered the world’s largest, a title that could be disputed.

The World’s Largest Chest of Drawers, also know as the Bureau of Information, was built in 1926 as a way to bring some attention to High Point, the Furniture Capital of the World. The building, modeled after a 19th-century dresser, stands 32 feet tall. It was renovated in 1996. The building features a pair of six-foot-tall socks dangling from one of the drawers.

The Jefferson Memorial, located in West Potomac Park on the shore of the Tidal Basin, the third president and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. The neoclassical monument was built between 1939 and 1943; a statue of Thomas Jefferson was added in 1947. The American Institute of Architects in 2007 ranked the Jefferson Memorial No. 4 on its List of America’s Favorite Architecture. Jefferson quotes included in the memorial have been criticized for being taken out of context.

The Lincoln Memorial is Washington is perhaps the most recognizable of all American monuments. This shrine  to the nation’s 16th president, situated on the western end of the National Mall, was built between 1914 and 1922; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Oct. 15, 1966. Demands for a tribute to the murdered president date to the years just after his assassination, and the first monument in Washington, D.C., to Lincoln was erected in 1868. Over the years, the Lincoln Memorial has been the site a number of major speeches, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963.