It was to run west from the Capitol to a tip directly south of the President's House where its terminus would be crowned by an equestrian statue of George Washington. According to L’Enfant plan, the Mall was to be "four hundred feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered by gardens, finish in a slope from the houses on each side."

Throughout the course of the 19th century, L’Enfant formal design for the Mall was largely forgotten. During the Civil War, the Mall grounds were used for military purposes, such as bivouacking and parade troops, slaughtering cattle and producing arms. In 1872, at 6th and B Streets, a 14 acre tract was given to the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad for the construction of a depot. The railroad was also granted permission to lay tracks north to south across part of the Mall.

In 1851, leader Millard Fillmore hired New York architect Andrew J. Downing to design a landscape plan for the Mall and the President's Park. This landscape was to give a wild, natural disposition of trees, shrubbery and open lawns, but it was never fully carried out.

In 1902 the McMillan charge submits their report to Congress. Their plan called for the restoration, development, and supplementation of the "Grand Avenue" ideal proposed by L'Enfant. The core of the Mall was to be a broad grass carpet, typical of those in Europe, 300' in breath and running the entire length of the Mall grounds, bordered on each side by four rows of American elm trees. Public buildings were to border the whole, alienated from the elms by narrow roadways. The push station was removed from the area in 1909.

There be nine museums on the Mall, two entrances for subversive museums, and the Department of Agriculture. The construction of the Museum of the American Indian, which will be located to the west of the nationwide and Air and Space Museum, has begun and this latest museum is listed to open in 2004.