Robert E Simon purchased 6,750 acres of land in Fairfax in 1961 after his family sold Carnegie Hall in New York. He built a planned community with his initials RES and town as its name.
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Robert E Simon purchased 6,750 acres of land in Fairfax in 1961 after his family sold Carnegie Hall in New York. He built a planned community with his initials RES and town as its name.
Hains point is named for Peter Conover Hains, a prominent Major General in the U.S. Army and served in the Civil War, Spanish-American War and World War I.
Pierre L'Enfant had originally planned the City of Washington around a right triangle, with the eastern portion at the Capitol, the northern portion at the White House and the 90 degree angle close to where the Washington Monument sits today. Thomas Jefferson marked this spot in 1793 with a wooden post, which was replaced in 1804 with the Jefferson Pier.
The name Adams Morgan is from the names of two formerly segregated area elementary schools—the older, all-black Thomas P. Morgan Elementary School and the all-white John Quincy Adams Elementary School, which merged in 1955 following desegregation.
Do you know why we have a neighborhood named after a Caribbean island? Find out how it's related to today's George Washington University too.
Career criminal Joseph Francis Fearon of Fairfax was the original ring leader of the “Beltway Bandits” of the late 1960s, robbing neighborhood homes neighboring the then-new Capital Beltway.
We have seriously slowed down our posts because Ghost Baby is growing up, and there’s also Ghost Baby #2. So Mrs. Ghost and I are of course very interested in the D.C. public elementary school system. Being the local history nerd, I wanted to dig into the history of a few city schools to uncover […]
Wonder what Washington DC diagonal roads are named after? Here's the history of DC's street names including states, letters, and numbers.
Langley, VA is the headquarters for the CIA. What's the history behind the area's name?
What's the origin of Maryland's name? And, what was the early pyramid scheme used to attract residents to the new colony? The answers may surprise you.
Clarendon started as a development off of the Georgetown to Falls Church road (now Wilson Blvd.) and the Washington, Arlington, Falls Church Railway.
Do you know the origin of the name "Federal Triangle"? Did you know that at one point the area was called "Pennsylvania Avenue Triangle"?
LeDroit Park was established as one of the first suburbs of Washington, D.C. It was named for a family member of the founders Amzi Barber.
Samuel Brown sold all the surrounding land of Pleasant Plains estate and named the remainder Mt. Pleasant because it invited the highest part of the original estate.
The namesake in England no longer stands as it was torn down in 1962, but the one in Woodley Park is still there. In 1950 it became the property of the Maret School and currently serves as a library and administrative building.
What is today Cleveland Park was an area for well-off Washingtonians to build their summer cottages. It was far enough away from swampy hot downtown and elevated to provide some breezy relief.
Tysons Corner or Tysons used to be called Peach Grove. William Tyson owned a farm west of DC which would become the site of a major shopping mall.
If you’re a fan of D.C. history, you’ll know that MacArthur Blvd. used to be called Conduit Rd. You probably also know that it was named for General Douglas MacArthur, the famous World War II general. But, the story behind it is a little more interesting than just renaming a street after a prominent American. […]
There once was a great suburban Washington estate called Tunlaw, in what is today Wesley Heights - the home stood at 45th and Klingle.
Learn about Glebe Road. It dates back to the 1700s and initially was known as the "Road to the Falls" taking travelers from Alexandria to Great Falls.
