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1900s

The view south from the top of the Washington Monument. Ice covers half of the Tidal Basin

What Did It Look Like Before the Jefferson Memorial?

Check out this great photo from 1908. The Jefferson Memorial wasn’t completed until 1943, so this is what the area looked like for another 35 years. Source: Flickr user Rob Ketcherside
1909 map of the Palisades

Great 1909 Map of the Palisades

Mrs. Ghost, Ghost Baby, and I spent a nice Saturday afternoon celebrating a birthday at a lovely home in the Palisades. The two parents of the young birthday child (and GoDCers) have a great home with the former Glen Echo Electric...

1904 Map of Entire Washington, D.C. Area

This map is amazing with the amount of details. Click on it to zoom in. It’s from 1904. Source: Library of Congress
Washington Post headline

Shots End Alexandria Saloon Brawl

The sub headline for this article was “Walter Bryant Hurls Beer Bottle and Edward Bryant Uses Pistol.” Who do you think won that fight? We dug up this wild article in The Washington Post, printed on April 24th, 1908. Three days...
1900 Howell & Taylor map of Arlington showing early Clarendon

Why Is It Named Clarendon?

Clarendon started as a development off of the Georgetown to Falls Church road (now Wilson Blvd.) and the Washington, Arlington, Falls Church Railway.
Potomac River

Tragic Potomac Drowning Ends Romance

This is a sad story that we came across in The Washington Postfrom June 29th, 1908. John McCalip, 22 years old, an electrician, at the Senate office building, was drowned yesterday while swimming in Broad Creek, on the Maryland side of...
Taken by Sidney Duff in Washington, DC. Union Station was completed in October 1908. Here, only one of the six statues have been installed over the entrance. Another photo from the set shows the Tidal Basin frozen over, causing me to guess that this is January 1908.

Union Station Under Construction

This is a terrific photo that we dug up on Flickr. It shows Union Station under construction in the early 1900s. We also cross-posted this on Cool Old Photos. Source: Rob Ketcherside

1906 Coca-Cola Advertisement

We love old ads here at Ghosts of DC and this is a great one from The Evening Star, printed on June 24th, 1906. Source: Library of Congress Three weeks later, Alfred Dreyfus was exonerated, bringing an end to the...
1906 map showing the original boundary milestones of the District of Columbia

1906 Map of All D.C. Boundary Stones

Working under commissioners that President Washington had appointed in 1790 in accordance with the Residence Act, Major Andrew Ellicott led a team that placed these markers in 1791 and 1792.
Third in a series of four panoramic photographs of Washington, D.C., from left to right (west to east) taken from a tower in the Smithsonian Institution Building. The Mall area is covered with trees. The streets on the left perpendicular to the Mall are 12th Street and 11th Street. The long building on the right is Center Market bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, Constitution Avenue, 7th and 9th Streets, N.W. Up and behind Center Market on the right, the large building is the Pension Bureau Building bounded by F and G Streets, N.W., between 4th and 5th Streets, designed by General Montgomery C. Meigs, completed in 1887, later occupied by many government agencies and now known as the National Building Museum

Why Does the National Mall Look the Way It Does?

What do you think? Is Washington the most beautiful city in the world? I have to believe that I’m biased, but I do think it is certainly one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Okay, there’s Paris, Vienna,...
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