Here is a great old photo to close out the day. This is the Willard Hotel in 1904, viewed looking up 14th St. to the right and Pennsylvania Ave. to the left. Click on the image to view a much larger version. The details are pretty impressive. Read More »
Here’s a crazy story for you from the 1940s. This was published in the Washington Post on June 4th, 1949. A young Air Force private was grabbed from a ninth-floor ledge of the Willard Hotel yesterday by three policemen who had spent 25 minutes persuading him from plunging to death. Paul J McDuff, 19, of Bolling Air Force Base, was ... Read More »
Wow. I think this photo speaks for itself. What an amazing shot of what would become Federal Triangle. Read More »
This is the first guest post by Roger. Check out his blog Forgotten Stories for some excellent lost history. Philemon T. Herbert was a crooked lawyer, a card shark, frequented brothels, and stood accused of attacking a political rival with a knife. In other words, he fit right in with the rough and tumble environment of California in the early 1850s, ... Read More »
Pass the afternoon by studying this photo close up. Amazing detail, including a view of the Willard Hotel as well as the Old Post Office. Read More »
The creator of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn was in our city back in December 1906 to participate in the copyright hearings before Congress. The Washington Post mentioned them in in their “People Met in Hotel Lobbies” section. “I should like to talk to you, but I have just retired and am bound for sleep,” said Samuel L. Clemens, better ... Read More »
In January 1860, the Tokugawa shogunate sent a delegation to the United States with the primary objective of ratifying the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (aka, the Harris Treaty). Commodore Matthew Perry (not Chandler) had opened Japan (forcefully) in 1854 and this was the first Japanese diplomatic mission sent to the United States. This historic event is particularly interesting to me because, while ... Read More »
We love the Willard Hotel. Who doesn’t? The place is full of amazing history. We posted a view from the top of the hotel last week and this week we’re posting a view of the hotel. We included this in the Calvin Coolidge post a while back, but the detail of this photo deserves a second look. Click on the ... Read More »
I can spend two or three hours researching an in depth “Three Things…” or “If Walls Could Talk” post and ultimately end up with the same number of readers as a quick afternoon photo post. Today, I’m going to flip the order or my posts and kick the morning off with a cool old photo from Shorpy. Below is a ... Read More »
This has less to do with the history of our city, but everything to do with the (almost) history of our nation. Arizona had been admitted to the union only a few years earlier in 1912 and by the middle of the decade, the two new senators, Marcus Smith and Henry Ashurst, were strongly advocating to acquire Mexican territory south ... Read More »
So, this is a really crazy story. I came across the following headline in the Washington Post from August 15th, 1903. Okay, you piqued my macabre interest. I have to read this one. Edward M. Fossler, aged eighteen years, an elevator conductor at the New Willard Hotel, was killed at 4 o’clock yesterday by being caught between the elevator and ... Read More »
This one made me laugh. This would never happen today … at least I hope it wouldn’t. It’s a story about Calvin Coolidge’s time here at Vice President under Warren Harding. Coolidge and his family arrived in Washington as the new Vice President and needed to find a suitable home. Unfortunately for the Coolidge clan, Calvin felt the housing prices ... Read More »
In December of 1905, Pat Garrett came to Washington to seek reappointment as customs collector in El Paso from his friend President Theodore Roosevelt. Unfortunately for Pat, he had lost his good standing with the President by associating with the low-life gambler and alcoholic Tom Powers of Wisconsin. Garrett and Powers were attending a Rough Riders reunion in San Antonio ... Read More »
Congressman Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois is considered by many as the most powerful Speaker of the House in American history. From 1903 to 1911 he was a congressman from Illinois, presiding over the United States House of Representatives. In December 1914, he was staying at the Willard Hotel. The Washington Post reported on him in their daily hotel lobbies column ... Read More »
I’ve come across a mountain of great society columns in old Washington Posts titled “In Hotel Lobbies.” This is going to make for some great material, so I’m kicking off a new category with the same title. On December 21st, 1903 Colonel William F. Cody was in Washington, staying at the recently opened New Willard at 15th and Pennsylvania Ave. ... Read More »
Ghosts of DC The lost and untold history of Washington