National Archives

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  • Address
    700 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Downtown
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  • Phone
    510 5400
  • Website
  • Transport
    underground rail: Archives-Navy Memorial

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Lonely Planet review

Inside this grand neoclassical building (enter from Constitution Ave NW) is a dimly lit rotunda with the three original documents upon which the US government is based: the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Don't expect to linger over the Big Three - guards make you keep moving - but you can study the Magna Carta of 1297 (courtesy of erstwhile presidential candidate H Ross Perot) and other documents at your leisure.

These precious documents are sealed in airtight, helium-filled cases that sink nightly into an underground vault to protect them from attack or theft. After the ongoing renovation at the National Archives, the exhibit will also include Public Vaults, to give visitors the feeling of going inside the stacks at the archives, as well as a theater and gift shop.

The archives themselves preserve reams of essential government documents, from the Louisiana Purchase Treaty to the Emancipation Proclamation. Researchers can access documents from to Monday to Saturday; enter from Pennsylvania Ave.