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This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

When I was face to the accuracy of this office, the President of the United States.

If you were standing in the crowd for any of the presidential inaugurations from Andrew Jackson through Dwight D. Eisenhower, you'd have seen the solemn oath of office taken between 24 tall, smooth columns at the East Portico of the United States Capitol Building.

When the columns were installed in 1824, the sandstone slabs themselves that made up the columns even before they were erected were considered so important that they were transported from the Potomac River to Capitol Hill by human power alone.

No lowly mules were deemed fit to move such sacred objects.

But they didn't have quite the same standing in 1958.

They had been taken off the East Front when the East Front was extended.

They were stored down along the Potomac and created slowly disintegrating.

After the renovation of the Capitol, the columns all got the boot. The notion was horrifying to Ethel Garrett. And she conscripted her friend Betty Ray.

I'm Elizabeth C. Ray known as Betty Ray.

And sometime in the 1970s, they made it their mission to get the columns back on their feet.

I thought this would be very simple. I mean, who would say, you know, couldn't do this?

It turns out plenty of people stood in the way.

Technically, they still belonged to Congress.

And after 10 years of meetings, you had to appear before various committees.

And more meetings.

And then they would have another meeting.

Fun raising.

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