A manual on the origin and development of Washington

The problem of establishing a permanent seat of government for the United States was most perplexing. The Continental Congress was obliged for its own protection to travel from...

The House of Representatives had proposed a bill naming Baltimore as the site, but the Senate struck out this provision, and on July 1, 1790, voted 14 to 12 for the Potomac Rive...

The first mention of the upper Potomac and adjacent regions to Indianhead, about 35 miles south of Washington, is made by Capt. John Smith, who explored this region from the Jam...

Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant was born in Paris August 2, 1754, the son of an academician, who was “Painter in ordinary to the King in his Manufacture of the Gobelins,” with a tu...

The L’Enfant plan, as before stated, was prepared for the Federal City under the direction of President Washington and Thomas Jefferson in 1791 by Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant,...

While Major L’Enfant drew the plan of the Federal City, it was Andrew Ellicott who afterward carried it out. The building of the city attracted many speculators, who invested he...

An interesting account of Washington during this period is given by David Baillie Warden in his book entitled “A Description of the District of Columbia,” published in Paris in...

The administration of President Monroe, who served two terms (1817-1825) is known as the “era of good feeling,” but so far as developing the plan of Washington little was done....

In 1840 Washington had a population of 23,364. The city was still in a very much undeveloped state, though the fact that it was the National Capital was not lost sight of. In 18...

Washington in 1860 was still a comparatively small and undeveloped city, with a population of 61,122. But the people were soon aroused to intense excitement because of the strif...

Great efforts to relocate the National Capital in some other city, preferably farther to the west, were made by some who were familiar with conditions in Washington. St. Louis o...

The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 at Philadelphia marked a century of progress. It aroused the country to its opportunities, after a period of lethargy and unrest that followed...

2. The wide avenues and streets of the area included in the L’Enfant plan are appropriately referred to as outstanding proof of the value of proper planning. The merit of this g...

In 1900 a great celebration commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the removal of the seat of government to the District of Columbia was held in Washington. The keynote...

Immediately after abolishing the Council of Fine Arts President Taft undertook to interest Congress in the establishment of a permanent Commission of Fine Arts. A bill was accor...

Our first President, by proclamation of October 17, 1791 (illustrated on page 21), established a height restriction of 40 feet on buildings in the new Capital. Although not a re...

A new period in the development of the city may be said to date from 1901 with the filing of the report of the McMillan Park Commission, for since that time there has been a con...

At the west end of the Mall is the Lincoln Memorial. The site was fixed by the McMillan Park Commission in 1901, which extended the Mall area of the original L’Enfant plan west...

Since 1871 in many ways, particularly municipal affairs, the National Capital has been in the lead among American cities. Having begun with a logical and well-thought-out plan f...

When the seat of government was moved from Philadelphia to Washington in the year 1800 there had been erected for the purposes of the Government a small rectangular building, fa...

The site for the Capitol, or the Federal House, as selected by L’Enfant, is on what was then known as Jenkin’s Hill, 88 feet above the level of the Potomac River.

As a result of the World War, Government departments in Washington became overcrowded, and from 30,000 to 40,000 employees were housed in temporary buildings. This congested sit...

A Territorial form of government, consisting of a governor, a board of public works, and a legislative assembly, was provided for by an act of Congress of February 21, 1871. The...

The land comprising the Arlington estate, 1,100 acres, was sold by Gerard Alexander to John Parke Custis in December, 1778, for a consideration of £11,000 Virginia currency. Joh...

The most precious work of art in the United States is the life mask of George Washington by the noted French sculptor, Jean Antoine Houdon, who in 1785 was commissioned by the S...