The deadliest act of domestic terrorism in America came without warning on April 19, 1995, when a rental truck packed with 7,000 pounds of explosive material blew up in front of Oklahoma City’s federal building. The shattering attack, carried out by a delusional Gulf War Army veteran hostile to the U.S. government, killed 168 people, including 19 infants and children.

Although it was overshadowed by the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Oklahoma City bombing remains a topic of broad interest. Its effects were felt widely and can be detected yet today.

The bombing notably accelerated movement toward a more guarded, more security-inclined America. It wasn’t long for the heart of Washington, D.C., to take on a bunker-like air.

A month after the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, authorities set up concrete barriers and closed vehicular traffic to two blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue nearest the White House. The move was preemptive, intended to prevent destruction on a scale of the Oklahoma City bombing. The move also was ordered unilaterally, without notice or public debate. And it was permanent.

Elsewhere in the capital, the installation of barriers and steel gates lent a wary, distrustful look that is obvious today. Architecture critic Witold Rybczynski once observed: “We used to mock an earlier generation that peppered the U.S. capital with Civil War generals on horseback; now I wonder what future generations will make of our architectural legacy of crash-resistant walls and blast-proof glass.”

As the Washington Post noted years later, the Oklahoma City bombing effectively “ended the capital’s life as an open city. Suddenly, driving into a garage involved guards wielding mirrors to inspect car bottoms. Jersey barriers undid the designs of landscapers and architects. An........

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