Yesterday, a tiny ripple made its way through the feeds of history geeks on Twitter. The James Garfield National Historic Site announced that it was working with historians, filmmakers, authors and other interested parties in placing a marker at the site where President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881. He is the only assassinated U.S. president without a marker at the site he was shot.
So why is there no marker for Garfield, 137 years after his murder? One reason might be his short term in office. Evan Andrews at History.com reports that after he was sworn in, Garfield clashed with fellow Republicans in Congress and cared for his wife, Lucretia, who was fighting a life-threatening bout of malaria. But the 20th president only served four months in the White House before he was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac rail station on July 2, 1881.
The other barrier to placing a marker at the site is the fact that the Baltimore and Potomac rail station, where the assassination took place, was torn down in 1908. According to Richard Brownell at WETA’s Boundary Stones, the rail station was built on Constitution Avenue, then B street, and 6th Street NW in 1873. While the station itself was rather beautiful, Washingtonians always hated the train shed that extended out from the station. Garfield’s murder at the site, of course, cast its own pall over the station. By 1901, plans were afoot to tear down the station during a large-scale renovation of the National Mall. In 1908, it finally came down and the tracks were dug up. The National Gallery of Art was opened on the site in 1941, covering the spot where a marker of the assassination might be placed.