District of Columbia

mahatmakanejeeves

(57,284 posts) Sat Mar 7, 2020, 05:38 PM Mar 2020

The White House Lawn Was Once Covered With Grazing Sheep

Mar 6, 1:55 pm

The White House Lawn Was Once Covered With Grazing Sheep

Elliot C. Williams

The White House lawn has been host to a number of oddities over the centuries: Egg Rolls, a White House cow named Pauline Wayne, a drunkenly flown drone, a stolen helicopter, and a stolen plane. But nothing tops the sheep that President Woodrow Wilson invited to help drum up patriotism during World War I.

How did DCist stumble upon these sheep? Well, the Smithsonian just unleashed a treasure-trove of nearly 3 million images into the public domain so that anyone can use them for research, craft stories, or whatever else they like (design T-shirts with them?) Within this collection, there are grainy black-and-white photos of sheep grazing peacefully on the South Lawn in 1919.

What seems like a mere agricultural preference of the Executive Branch, was actually a political move. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson enlisted this flock to keep the grass trimmed, and by auctioning their wool, raised more than $50,000 for the Red Cross war fund.

{snip}