to be greeted by the cheers of the people, including President Jackson, that historic 25th day of August, 1835, was the arrival of a huge locomotive drawing a train of modern coaches over the same old road, but into the new Union Station.

"The depot site, before the improvement, consisted of low, undesirable land, less than 20 feet above mean tide, has now been transformed into an eminence, 60 feet above mean tide level, with gently sloping approaches.”—Am. Architect, June 3, 1908.

The site selected is on the old Baltimore and Ohio property, and covers 25 to 30 acres.

The Baltimore and Ohio was compelled to abandon its station at New Jersey avenue and C streets to make way for the great plaza.

Provision was made for a Union Station in Washington, D. C., by an Act of Congress of February 28, 1903. It was to be ready for occupancy by 1908. Congress appropriated $3,000,000 toward its construction, but the total cost was in the neighborhood of $20,000,000.

The foundations of the building start about 45 feet below the main floor level, and are of massive concrete pier and wall construction. Messrs D. H. Burnham & Co. of Chicago were the architects.

This great work has been done by the Washington Terminal Company, owned jointly by the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads.

This station is said to be one of the most beautiful buildings, architecturally, in America, and one of the finest, largest and most costly railroad stations in the world.

Union Station was completed Oct. 15, 1907. The Pennsylvania R.R. entered the station Nov. 17, 1907.

The centennial of American railroading, as it is under

stood today, will be commemorated February 28, 1927 in a befitting celebration of the auspicious event of Amer ica's first railroad for the transportation of passengers and freight.

ANDREW JACKSON DOWNING
AND THE

MONUMENT TO HIS MEMORY

By

JOHN CLAGETT PROCTOR

(Read before the Society, May 15, 1923.)

VER in the Mall, a little southeast of the new build

ing of the National Museum, is a memorial erected to the memory of Andrew Jackson Downing, a distinguished landscape gardener and an interesting pioneer writer on both horticultural and pomological subjects.

A hundred feet or so from, the path of travel, this silent reminder of departed genius has stood for nearly sixty-seven years. Few of the many thousands of persons who pass it annually, ever give it a thought, and fewer still ever cross the lawn to the circular iron fence and pause to read the inscription on the memorial vase enclosed therein, dedicated to the man who did so much toward making a beautiful park out of an unsightly, neglected waste of land, and who laid the foundation in this city for the beautiful parks we have today.

No apparent improvement had been made in the Mall until 1848, when the section lying between Seventh Street and the Potomac River was graded and a few trees planted. Until then, it had stood a neglected area for many years, as up until that time Congress had not awakened to the necessity of improving to any considerable extent the parks of Washington, and only such