A final final estimate of the Restoring Honor rally: One million, forty thousand. Here is our explanation.

There continues to be a "controversy" with regard to the crowd estimate of the Restoring Honor rally held last weekend. This is not rocket science. It is rather simple to estimate the crowd size.

Using this photo (left) as a base, our updated numbers were 600,000 plus the 200,000 watching the live stream. We know that 100,000 are on each side of the long green reflection pool in the center of the photo because that was the size of the crowd at the Dr. King "I had a dream" speech 47 years ago. So we have 200,000 from the start. The field to the "left" of this photo holds another 250,000 if full. It is not "full," so we allowed for 200,000 in that field.

update note: am Tuesday morning. For some reason two of the three pictured posted are not longer in the post layout; not sure as to why. The numbers are fine but the pictures need help make the argument. We are working on the problem -- jds.

Previously, we had assumed that no one was in the trees on the left side. We now have a photo (the second photo, left) that shows we were wrong. There are as many people under that row of trees as are standing on the left edge of the pool - another 70,000 easily!! If you consider the crowd from left edge of the reflecting pool, it is wall to wall THROUGH the trees from the pool to the far left edge of the crowd.

In short, and to avoid confusion here, we see 370,00 people on the "left" side of the pool.


This picture is of the crowd you cannot see in the trees to the right of the reflecting pool (top photo). As you can see, the trees on both sides of the pool are "pruned" high to allow for full courses of attendees.

Because of these ground photo's, we now know that we do not need to allow for "the trees." That means, for the sake of estimates, that the crowd on right side of the pool is at least the same size as the crowd on the left side.

We are, therefore looking at a total of 740,000 with another 60,000 at the "fountain" pool and 40,000 at and around the Lincoln Memorial. The crowd total, then, could have been as high as 840,000 people.

Let's not forget those who were watching. C-SPAN carried the event. No doubt thousands watched via that medium but the numbers of viewers has not been released as of today. We expect C-SPAN to keep the numbers "secret," but, maybe they will surprise us all.

Finally, we have the computer could supplied the company that ran the rally on "live stream." On our computer, that number grew throughout the three hour and 20 minute rally and wound up at 130,363. More than one person watched on many of these computers, so we might estimate the computer crowd at at least 200,000 viewers.

Final total per Midknight Review's profoundly cautious estimate is: 1,040,000 (1 million forty thousand) NOT counting the thousands watching on C-SPAN.