Roadside oddities38.9123° N, 77.0413° W
Washington, DC
An ornate Gilded Age mansion became the international headquarters of the Order of the Eastern Star and is filled with ceremonial and architectural detail.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
Roadside oddities in District of Columbia
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Roadside oddities45
Suggest a stopGiant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
- Roadside oddities38.8900° N, 77.0090° W
Washington, DC
The Capitol's monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony includes a conspicuously unfinished block of marble behind the figures.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities38.8979° N, 77.0230° W
Washington, DC
At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Constitution's preamble is spelled out using vanity license plates.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.9001° N, 77.0346° W
Washington, DC
A discreet service and security approach near the White House hints at the enclosed passages and controlled routes used behind the public-facing complex; observe only from lawful public space.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities38.9220° N, 77.0361° W
Washington, DC
A small weathered memorial statue in Meridian Hill Park has endured repeated vandalism and repairs, giving it a strange afterlife among D.C. monuments.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8892° N, 77.0246° W
Washington, DC
The restored carousel on the National Mall returned in 2026 and carries a civil-rights-era connection to the desegregation of amusement facilities in the capital region.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.9083° N, 77.0447° W
Washington, DC
A tiny triangular private memorial park contains a plaque to Sonny Bono and, according to its creator, a buried cache that includes sheet music.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.9311° N, 77.0716° W
Washington, DC
A stained-glass window in the National Cathedral contains an actual piece of lunar rock brought back by Apollo 11.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8938° N, 77.0217° W
Washington, DC
A much-mocked 19th-century fountain was donated by a temperance advocate who hoped free drinking water would steer people away from alcohol.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8654° N, 76.9897° W
Washington, DC
A huge chair in Anacostia continues the neighborhood's long-running tradition of an oversized furniture landmark.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities38.9113° N, 77.0375° W
Washington, DC
This unusually tall 1890s apartment building helped provoke the backlash that shaped Washington's later building-height restrictions.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities38.9084° N, 77.0457° W
Washington, DC
A maze-like mansion filled with secret doors, hidden rooms, themed spaces, memorabilia, and deliberately confusing passageways.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities38.8880° N, 77.0264° W
Washington, DC
James McNeill Whistler's intensely decorated Peacock Room is a room-sized artwork filled with blue-green ornament and gilded peacocks.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8927° N, 77.0614° W
Washington, DC
A wooded island in the Potomac hides monumental stone tablets and a large Roosevelt statue at the center of an intentionally wild memorial landscape.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8980° N, 77.0230° W
Washington, DC
James Hampton's monumental foil-covered visionary throne was assembled from discarded materials and is now one of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's signature outsider-art works.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8914° N, 77.0106° W
Washington, DC
Frederick Law Olmsted's red-brick grotto-like Summerhouse provides a surprisingly secluded fountain retreat on the Capitol grounds.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.9319° N, 77.0524° W
Washington, DC
A large fiberglass Triceratops created for the 1960s children's television production The Enormous Egg survives at the National Zoo.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8891° N, 77.0353° W
Washington, DC
Near the full-size Washington Monument is a much smaller survey marker that looks like a tiny stone version of the famous obelisk.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8894° N, 77.0353° W
Washington, DC
The Washington Monument's aluminum apex and later lightning-protection system tell a surprisingly destructive history of repeated lightning strikes high above the Mall.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8895° N, 77.0351° W
Washington, DC
A visible change in marble color partway up the Washington Monument records the long interruption between its two major construction phases.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities38.8951° N, 77.0366° W
Washington, DC
This small stone marker south of the White House was intended as the national point from which U.S. road distances would be measured.
- Access
- Open to visitors