Library of Congress

Our next stop on that crazy hot day was the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress was established by John Adams in 1800 as reference library for the Congress (good name for it eh?). The original library was housed in the Capitol until August 1814 when British troops set fire to the Capitol. Former President Thomas Jefferson offered his collection of books from over 50 years to the government as a replacement. In January 1815, Congress accepted his offer and paid him $23,950 for his 6,487 books. After several years, they had collected so many books that they needed to build a new building to house them all. Thus became "the largest, the costliest, and the safest" library building in the world. And may I say the most beautiful building!!

Today's Library of Congress houses more than 144 million items including cataloged books, other print material in 460 languages, transcripts, rare books, legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings. (www.loc.gov)

The inside of the building is breathtaking. There isn't an area that isn't filled with detail. Just walking around, you are being educated.

The building was magnificent! I wish I could have gone into this reading room to take a look around. Originally, we were going to try and get a Library of Congress library card, but we didn't get a chance to.

I would have loved to walk in this reading room and look around. (Although, I don't know what they would have said about having Carl in there).

The Library of Congress is a must see in Washington DC.