HistoricSiteMarkers
Postwar & Contemporary

Inspiration Park

Gaithersburg, Montgomery County, Maryland

Marker Inscription

Dedicated to those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001

The Story

On September 11, 2001, coordinated terrorist attacks using four hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people in a single morning. This park in Gaithersburg — in the Maryland suburbs of a capital region that felt the day's shock firsthand — sets aside quiet ground to honor those who were lost. Memorials like it turned countless communities across the country into shared places of mourning and remembrance in the years that followed.

Why it matters

September 11 was the deadliest attack on American soil in modern history, reshaping the nation's security, foreign policy, and sense of itself for a generation. Local memorials ensure the loss is carried not only as national history but as grief neighbors hold together.

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  • · September 11, 2001 attacks

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