Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1885-11-13
A Great Building.

SAV
Two hundred hands are busy
working upon the immense new
granite building devoted to the State,
War and Navy Departments, and
the hammer of the mason and the
whistle of the steam engine as they
put the big granite blocks in their
places, can be plainly heard in the
Cabinet room of the President across
the way. This mammoth building
is at last approaching completion,
and within two years at furthost it
will be finished structure. 1t has
alIeady cost about nine million dol
lars aud when it is done it's aggre-
gale will foot up at least ten millions
and a quarter. 1t is the largest
building in Washington, and is said
to be the largest granite building in
the world. 1t covers about four
acres aud a half of ground, or an
ccre more than the Capitol; it is SO
built that it will almost outlast the
ages. Its composition is of Immense
blocks of iron-gray granite, weigh.
ing all the way from a quarter OF a
ton to twenty tons each. In the
north wing of the building alone
there are ten thousand of these big
granite blocks, and in the whole
structure the number of blocks of
this immense size will aggregate
about $4,000. The public square OF
Cleveland contains about ten acres
of space. The flooring space of this
building i'll its various stories will be
more than twice as large as that
park, and the pipes and fues, if
stretched out in one straight line,
would reach nearly forty miles, or
as far as from Washington to Balti-
more. Among oil the millionaires
of Cleveland there is not one, I
should say, who has as many dollars
as there are bricks in this building,
and if one could receive the cost of
the smallest item in its construction
he would be worth fortune.
The building contains four wings,
north, east, south and west. The
stairs of the north wing alone cost
$50, 1000 and the plastering even
more than this. Its floors cost $72,-
600, and the granite work footed up
over million. In this wing there
are $9l 900 worth of bricks, more
than 100000 worth of roof, and
the plumbing and the gas fitting
when figured up for this wing, de.
voted to the War Department, equals
about as many dollars as there are
soldiers in the whole United States
army.
This building is perfectly fire.
proof. 1t is made entirely of iron
and stone, with the exception of q
skin of boards which is laid over the
stone floors of the offices for com.
fort, and of the doors themselves.
The doors are of polished mahog-
any, but their castings are of iron,
and there are 545 tons OF iron in the
castings of the window frames and
door castings of the east wing alone.
The building has hundreds of win
dows and it is perfectly lighted and
ventilated. Its chandeliers will be
numbered by the thousand, and it's
mantles and ireplaces by hundreds.
1t is so arranged that electric wires
can be run through every part of the
building. On the desks of The sec.
retaries, heads of bureaus, and chief
clerks you will see rows Of electric
buttons labelled with various names.
If the Secretary wants messenger
or man from any other part OF the
building, he touches a button de.
voted to him, and as he does so q
bells rings in that mans Office, it
may be a third of a mile away. A
third of mile, I say, for that is the
distance one goes over in passing
around the building, and it is nearly
600 feet from the north end of it to
the south.
A BAR of iron worth S. so made
into horse-shoes lis worth $40 so: