Treasury Building Tour
Tours of the Main Treasury Building of the Main Treasury Building, located at Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in Washington, D.C. are available by advanced reservation through your Congressional offices. For more information on tours and reservations, visit the Treasury Curator web site. Please note that this is NOT the tour for seeing the production of United States currency notes. To see currency production, you need to tour the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
You can also take a narrated virtual tour of the Main Treasury Building.
The Main Treasury Building is located at
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in Washington,
D.C. This view is taken from the north. In
the distance is the Washington Monument.
On the building's
south side, you will see a statue of
Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary
of the Treasury. On the north side, there
is a statue of
Albert Gallatin, the 4th Secretary
of the Treasury, serving during the
Jefferson and Madison administrations. On
west side, next to the White House, you will
see a reproduction of the . All
visitors must enter through the Fifteenth
Street entrance.
The first stop on the
tour is the
Salmon P. Chase Suite, one of the
restored historic rooms on the third floor.
This suite of offices was used by ,
who served as Secretary
of the Treasury during the Civil War.
Entries from Chase's diary indicate several
meetings took place with President Lincoln in
this room. This suite of offices is currently
used by the General
Counsel of the Treasury Department.
The next stop on
the tour is the
Secretary's Conference Room and Diplomatic
Reception Room. The conference room is
located directly across the hall from the
Secretary's Office and next door to the
Diplomatic Reception Room by a connecting
hallway.
These rooms recreate a typical mid-19th
century government interior. They are used by
the Secretary
of the Treasury for senior staff
meetings, diplomatic receptions, press
conferences and interviews, and meetings with
other Cabinet officers and foreign
dignitaries.
The final stop on
the third floor is the
Andrew Johnson Suite, location of the
resoted office used by President Johnson as
his temporary White House immediately
following the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln in 1865. Black mourning cloth draped
the Reception Room during the days following
the assasination. The portrait of President
Johnson is on loan courtesy of the Corcoran
Gallery of Art.
On the second floor
is the
Burglar-proof Vault, with its restored
decorative cast iron wall. Built in 1864, the
wall lining was composed of metal balls
sandwiched between three steel plates that
were intended to prevent a burglar from
penetrating the vault. It is now part of the
office of the Treasurer
of the United States.
The historic marble
Cash Room on the second floor is the
final stop on the tour. It was first used for
President Grant's Inaugural Reception in 1869
and was restored to the way it looked then.
It has been the site of many press
conferences, meetings, receptions and bill
signing ceremonies. Unfortunately, it was
severely damaged in the fire that occurred on
June
26, 1996, but the restoration to repair
water damage caused by the fire is now
complete.
We wish
to thank the for helping us to
maintain this information. We also invite you
to visit the Curator's Home
Page to read more about the architecture
of the Treasury Building and its historic
collection.
Last Updated:
August 23, 2007
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