Anacostia is one of DC’s oldest neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River, with a history stretching from Frederick Douglass’s home on Cedar Hill to the Bonus Army encampment of 1932 and the urban renewal battles of the 20th century.
This post recounts a letter from Washington, D.C. in 1886 discussing the violence on the streets of Anacostia. Reports and perceptions of violence and criminality in Anacostia are over-rated and have a history.
Take a look back in time to 1902 and explore Congress Heights with this advertisement from the Washington Times. Read through the whole thing and be amazed!
43,000 Bonus Army veterans camped on the Anacostia Flats in 1932. MacArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower drove them out with bayonets.
Curious about water problems in DC? Here are stories about the Bryant Street Pumping Station from the early 1900s.
Anacostia takes its name from the Nacotchtank people, the Native Algonquin tribe Captain John Smith encountered when he sailed up the Eastern Branch in 1612. Here’s how “Natcotchtank” slowly became “Anacostia.”
In 1938, a plane crashed in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington DC in what became the city’s deadliest aviation disaster. Here is the full account.
