The 1900s opened with the Senate Park Commission’s plan to redesign the National Mall, launching one of the most ambitious urban transformations in American history. Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency brought energy and ambition to the capital, and the city’s grand Beaux-Arts institutions began rising across downtown. These posts cover Washington at the dawn of the American century.
On the evening of September 21, 1927, a Washington attorney named Alexander G. Bentley walked into a room at the Houston Hotel on E Street near Ninth and shot himself. He was 52. The Washington Post ran it on page one the next morning. His home address, given in the second sentence: 1627 Lamont Street … Read more
A rough, all-Irish neighborhood called Swampoodle once stood where Union Station is now. The railroad cleared it, and DC forgot.
In 1891, King Gojong paid $25,000 for a Victorian townhouse on Iowa Circle to house Joseon’s first mission to the United States. Nineteen years later, after Japan forced the protectorate, the empire sold the building for five dollars. Korea bought it back in 2012 for $3.5 million. The museum opened in 2018.
Thomas Brackett Reed rewrote the rules of Congress, crushed the filibuster, and walked away from power on principle. He died at the Arlington Hotel while a party raged downstairs.
In 1924, construction near Dupont Circle broke into a secret tunnel. Smithsonian entomologist Harrison Dyar had hand-dug it.
Pat Garrett shot Billy the Kid in 1881. Three decades later, Teddy Roosevelt fired him and he was killed on a New Mexico road.
Unearth the charm of vintage advertising! Step back to May 1903 with an enchanting piece from The Washington Times.
Take a look back to 1907 with this advertisement for Silver Spring Park, printed in The Washington Times. See the history of the park and its attractions and offerings in this vintage ad.
We thought it would be interesting to dig up a previous argument from the archives of The Washington Post. Read a letter to the editor, originally printed in April 1905, and learn more about its author.
