The Christopher Columbus memorial fountain at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station is, like so many of the monuments in D.C., under appreciated. When we asked a man leaning against the marble what he thought about it, if he liked it, all he did was shrug his shoulders and say, “Eh.”

Compare that to the day it was unveiled.

It was June 8, 1912, a day the New York Times called “second only to the inauguration of a President” because of the parade that included 15,000 troops, 2,000 motor cars, 50,000 Knights of Columbus, around 150,000 spectators, a 21 gun salute, and elaborate horse-drawn floats depicting noteworthy incidents in Columbus’ life.

But since that day, it seems, the Columbus fountain has receded into the background as, sadly, just another monument.

At the unveiling ceremony, President Taft said, “It is most difficult for us by any effort of the imagination to take in the problem which Columbus solved.” Yet today Columbus is hardly thought of as a national hero to anyone beyond the third grade. Is the Columbus fountain’s fall from grace related to our knowledge that the explorer was not the first to actually “discover” our continent? Maybe the Columbus statue has simply been gradually overlooked as D.C. has continued to add more and more monuments.

Photo by dcmemorials.com