Ghosts of DC The lost and untold history of Washington

Here’s the Thursday edition of “In the Paper” for May 17th, 1912. Read More »

Also of interest in this edition is Roosevelt being sure of his nomination. Read More »

Taft and Roosevelt were battling it out for the Presidency in 1912. Here’s the front page of the Washington Times for May 15th, 101 years ago today. Read More »

Here is the second day of our “In the Paper” installment for this week. Here is the evening edition of the Washington Times from exactly 101 years ago. Read More »

This week, we’re going to post the front and back page of the Washington Times from the week of May 13th, 1912, exactly 101 years ago today. Why didn’t we do 100 years? Because May 13th, 1912 was a Monday and May 13, 1913 was a Tuesday. We wanted to do a full week. Click on the images to see ... Read More »

Here’s a page from the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser from Monday, March 25th, 1907, exactly 96 years ago yesterday (I should have posted this on Monday). The most interesting ad is the one for Portner’s Beer. Evidently, descendants of Robert Portner are gearing up to relaunch the brand as a brewhouse in Alexandria. GoDC is a big supporter of ... Read More »

One hundred years ago today, exactly at 2:15 p.m. (when we published this post), Captain A.H. Rostron was awarded a Congressional Medal in the  East Room of the White House. President Taft (in the final days of his administration) presided over the event, presenting the award to Rostron for “acts of unusual heroism,” saving the lives of 700 passengers. Make ... Read More »

Exactly 150 years ago, today, this was an advertisement published in the Daily National Republican (though it seems the ad itself dates to December of the previous year). Also, it’s interesting to note the warning notice regarding fraudulent tickets being sold. Read More »

On Friday, November 2nd, 106 years ago, this was the sports page of the Washington Times. Read More »

Today we’re kicking off a new Ghosts of DC category called “In the Paper,” where we will post an entire page from an old newspaper, and adding just a bit of commentary. These newspaper pages will be shared in high resolution so you will be able to read the whole thing and we’d love to get some GoDC community comments ... Read More »

We’re a little late on this, but … this day in history (minus 12 days), 56 years ago, the Baltimore Sun reported a rumor that the Washington Senators were moving to the West Coast for the 1957 season. Washington, Sept 12 (AP)–Calvin R. Griffith, president of the Washington Senators, said today it isn’t so that the American League baseball club is all ... Read More »

Washington Times, August 9th, 1919 A new $2,000,000 apartment hotel is to be erected at once on the property bounded by Sixteenth street, New Hampshire avenue, V and W streets. The building will be complete in every detail and will be erected according to the latest architectural designs for such structures. Announcement of the construction of the new apartment is ... Read More »

This is an interesting article from the Washington Times, dated August 8th, 1914, exactly 98 years ago today. World War I (i.e., the Great War) had been going for roughly two weeks and the paper reported the impact it would have on the local schools. Many school teachers were spending their summers in Europe when war broke out. Causing the ... Read More »

If you’re a history buff — and a presidential history buff — you’re well aware of the 1876 U.S. Presidential election. This is not a post about that. You can read up on the whole election on Wikipedia as well as the resulting “corrupt bargain,” the Compromise of 1877 – ending military occupation of the southern states (effectively ending Reconstruction) and ... Read More »

This is another haunting discover, much like the advertisement I uncovered for the Titanic (also, read about the notable DC resident that went down with that ship). I came across an advertisement in the Washington Post on April 25th, 1915 — exactly 97 years ago today (a good “This Day in History” post) — for passage to Europe on the ... Read More »