The HISTORY of the PENTAGON

by Jason

The history of the Pentagon started in 1941 when General Brehon Sommervell decided the war department needed only one office, rather than 17 in different parts of Washington DC.  The original site was a piece a land called Arlington Farms.  They changed the site from an old Hoover airport, a brick factory, a pickle factory, a race track and a low income housing area called Hell's bottom.  The reason the building is a pentagon is because there are five roads in Pentagon shape that surround the original site. In this building many conferences were held.  The architectural style is stripped Neo-Classical which is a variation of Greek and Roman style often used for government buildings.  The building is made out of reinforced concrete from 389,000 tons and taken from the Potomac River and supported by 41,492 concrete piles.  The designers not only created a building that shows architectural style of the nation’s capital but also saved enough steel to build one battleship because they had to conserve steel during the war.  Instead they used reinforced concrete.  They started building on September 11, 1941.  It took approximately one year to complete working 24 hours a day.

In 1992, the Pentagon became a national historic landmark.  The pentagon covers 583 acres of land; the building is on 29 acres of land. In this building were many conferences were held.

Concrete ramps were used instead of elevators and the outside walls were made of reinforced concrete.  There are five floor plus mezzanine and basement, originally there were supposed to be three.  The building is 77 feet 3.5 inches high and each outside wall is 921 feet long.  The corridors measure up to 17.5 miles long and the court yard covers 5 acres for each side.  There are more than 7 acres of glass, 7,000 electric clocks, 691 drinking fountains, 131 stairways, 19 escalators, 13 elevators, 672 firehouse cabinets and 28 restrooms.  The parking lot is 67 acres and has space for 8,770 vehicles.  With a shopping concourse, numerous snack bars, cafeterias, dining rooms, banks, a subway station and a bus platform makes the pentagon “a city within a city”.

Reference:        Infoplease.com and visitingdc.com