Some amazing old drawings of what our Library of Congress could have looked like.

These are old maps of Washington in 1874. They're amazingly detailed and are a "manual for business men."

These 1870s photos are incredible, showing the District just following the Civil War. Click on them for more details.

This great old photo shows the Arts and Industries Building on the Mall under construction in 1879. And below we found an interesting 1878 rendering of what the building should look like. And finally, here’s a photo of the building after being completed.

This is a great old map of Georgetown. Click on it for greater details. Source: Library of Congress

This amazing find was dug up courtesy of the National Park Service. You’re look at a grainy image of Frederick Douglass standing in front of his home on Capitol Hill at 320 A St. NE. The home still stands today and you can walk by it, looking almost the same. By the way, we also […]

Many of you know that the Washington Monument sat unfinished for decades, an eye-sore of a stump on what would become the National Mall. Here is what it looked like in 1877, as seen from the Smithsonian Castle, so you’re looking west towards the Potomac. Source: National Park Service

Proposed renovations of the Capitol Building from the 1870s. Achitectural drawing for alterations to the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. West elevation.

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.

Here’s a cool bird’s-eye view of the Capitol and the rest of Washington from 1872. Source: Library of Congress

This is a great old map, about a decade earlier than this one of Columbia Heights and Mt. Pleasant. Click on it for a larger version to see more details. In this, Howard is Newton St. and Sheridan is Monroe, before the streets were renamed in the early 20th century. Source: Dig DC

Check out this terrific 1874 map of Georgetown with the old street names. Source: Dig DC

Here is a map of the Carlin Springs subdivision in Alexandria, now Arlington County. Source: Library of Congress Here’s the same area as it looked in 1890. Source: Library of Congress

Ulysses Grant was arrested for speeding by William West, an African-American metropolitan policeman. This is a great historical story.

This is what the Library of Congress could have looked like if Leon Beaver’s design from 1873 was selected. Here’s a second rendering of the building with some perspective. Check out a few more of his drawings here.

This is a colorful story for the lost neighborhood of Swampoodle. We came across the article in The Washington Post, printed on October 20th, 1879. Morris Connors, a notorious Swampoodle thief and rough, tumbled out of a restaurant on G near North Capitol street at 9 o’clock yesterday morning in an outrageous condition from the effects […]

Here’s an old print from 1873, showing Ulysses Grant’s second inauguration, looking down Pennsylvania Ave. Source: Library of Congress

What a cool series of old photos from 1879. We’ve published so many posts that we can’t remember if these went up before, but nevertheless, sharing them twice isn’t such a bad thing. Source: Library of Congress

What were the roads of Washington like in 1872? This great map shows the different paving surfaces throughout the city, including wood, stone and concrete.

Check out this cool proposed design to finish the Washington Monument. Construction didn’t restart on the unfinished monument until 1879 after Congress appropriated another $200,000 to complete it. Below is one of the proposals on the finished design, from 1877, done by Henry R. Searle. Source: Library of Congress