Washington was barely a city in the 1790s. The decade opened with L’Enfant laying out his grand plan for the federal capital and closed with the government finally picking up stakes from Philadelphia and moving in. These posts cover the founding years, from the placement of the boundary stones to the earliest buildings that defined the city.
Truxton Circle lost its namesake traffic roundabout in 1947, but the story of how it got that name reaches back to the founding of the U.S. Navy and Commodore Thomas Truxtun, one of the most celebrated officers of the early republic.
President John Adams’ letter nominating George Washington of Mount Vernon as Lieutenant General and Commander in Chief of All the Armies of the United States.
On September 9, 1791, the commissioners named the Territory of Columbia, for Columbus, and the City of Washington. The word District came later.
Explore the first official plan of Washington D.C., published by Andrew Ellicott in 1792
Take a look at these beautiful prints of Washington as it looked in the 1790s. They were done by George Isham Parkyns and show a slightly different, more pastoral landscape. See the print of the Potomac and guess which island it is!
In 1796 an Englishman named William Tunnicliff opened the first hotel in Washington, D.C., a brick house on Pennsylvania Avenue SE that survived for 135 years. The place we call Tunnicliff’s Tavern today on 7th Street SE borrows the name. The original is something else entirely.
Washington’s street grid runs A, B, C… I, K, L. There is no J Street, and the John Jay rivalry story is wrong. The real reason is 18th-century typography.
In March 1791, George Washington talked the Maryland farmers and planters who owned the future capital into signing their land over in trust.
Did you know the White House was once known as the President’s Palace? Read on to learn the history of the White House and the story of the man who almost designed it – John Collins.
