½ Dollar (US Capitol Visitor Center)

The Half Dollar That Helped Build a Door Into the Capitol

Two hundred years before this coin existed, Congress squeezed into a half-finished Capitol on the edge of a swampy new capital city. In 2001 the U.S. Mint struck a half dollar to mark the anniversary — and to help bankroll the modern visitor center now buried beneath the building's east lawn. Fewer than 100,000 collectors bought the everyday version.