History

Like most cities, Washington, D.C.'s history is written in its landscape. Behold the lustrous Potomac River, whose discovery by Captain John Smith in 1608 led to settlement of the area, getting the story going. Notice the lay of the land: the 160-foot-wide avenues radiating from squares and circles, the sweeping vistas, the abundant parkland, very much as Pierre Charles L'Enfant intended when he planned the "Federal District" in 1791. Look around and you will see the Washington Monument, the U.S. Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and other landmarks, their very prominence in the flat, central cityscape attesting to their significance in the formation of our nation's capital.

But Washington's history is very much a tale of two cities. Beyond the National Mall, the memorials, and our federal government buildings lies "D.C.," the municipality. Politicians speak critically of "Washington," shorthand, we understand, for all that is wrong with our current government. They should be more precise. With that snide dismissal, politicians dismiss, as well, the particular locale in which the capital resides. It is a place of vibrant neighborhoods and vivid personalities, a vaunted arts-and-culture scene, international diversity, rich African-American heritage, uniquely D.C. attractions and people -- the very citizens who built the capital in the first place and have kept it running ever since.

Early Days

In the beginning, there were Indians. Of course. Captain John Smith may have been the first European to discover this waterfront property of lush greenery and woodlands, but the Nacotchtank and Piscataway Indians were way ahead of him. As Smith and company settled the area, they disrupted the Indian ways of life and introduced European diseases. The Indians gradually moved away.

By 1751, Irish and Scottish immigrants had founded "George Town," named for the king of England and soon established as an important tobacco shipping port. Several houses from those days still exist in Georgetown: the Old Stone House (on M St. NW), originally a woodworker's home from around the 1760s, operated by the National Park Service and open to the public; and a few magnificent ship merchants' mansions on N and Prospect streets, which, at the time, overlooked the Potomac River. (These are privately owned and not open to the public.)

Birth of the Capital

After colonists in George Town and elsewhere in America rebelled against British rule, defeating the British in the American Revolution (1775-83), Congress, in quick succession, unanimously elected General George Washington as the first president of the United States, ratified a U.S. Constitution, and proposed that a city be designed and built to house the seat of government for the new nation and to function fully in commercial and cultural capacities. Much squabbling ensued. The North wanted the capital, the South wanted the capital. President Washington huddled with his secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, and devised a solution that Congress approved in 1790: The nation's capital would be "a site not exceeding 10 miles square" located on the Potomac. The South was happy, for this area was nominally in their region; Northern states were appeased by the stipulation that the South pay off the North's Revolutionary War debt, and by the city's location, on the North-South border. Washington, District of Columbia, made her debut.

The only problem was that she was not exactly presentable. The brave new country's capital proved to be a tract of undeveloped wilderness, where pigs, goats, and cows roamed free, and habitable houses were few and far between. Thankfully, the city did have the masterful 1791 plan of the gifted but temperamental French-born engineer, Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Slaves, free blacks, and immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and other countries strove to fulfill L'Enfant's remarkable vision, erecting first the White House (the city's oldest federal structure), then the Capitol, and other buildings. Gradually, the capital began to take shape, though too slowly perhaps for some. The writer Anthony Trollope, visiting in 1860, declared Washington "as melancholy and miserable a town as the mind of man can conceive."

Washington Grows Up

During the Civil War the capital became an armed camp and headquarters for the Union Army, overflowing with thousands of followers. Parks became campgrounds; churches, schools, and federal buildings, including the Capitol and the Patent Office (now the National Portrait Gallery), became hospitals; and forts ringed the town. The population grew from 60,000 to 200,000, as soldiers, former slaves, merchants, and laborers converged on the scene. The streets were filled with the wounded, nursed by the likes of Walt Whitman, one of many making the rounds to aid ailing soldiers. In spite of everything, President Lincoln insisted that work on the Capitol continue. "If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on," he said.

In the wake of the Civil War and President Lincoln's assassination, Congress took stock of the capital and saw a town worn out by years of war and awash in people, but still lacking the most fundamental facilities. The place was a mess. Members proposed moving the capital city elsewhere, perhaps to St. Louis or some other more centrally located city. A bilateral rescue of sorts arrived in the capital: in the development of a streetcar system that allowed the District's overflowing population to move beyond city limits, and in the persons of public works leaders, especially an official named Alexander "Boss" Shepherd, whose "comprehensive plan of improvement" at last incorporated the infrastructure so necessary to a functioning metropolis. Shepherd established parks, constructed streets and bridges, installed water and sewer systems and gas lighting, and just generally nudged the nation's capital closer to showplace design. Notable accomplishments included the completion of the Washington Monument finally in 1884 (only took 36 years) and the opening on the Mall of the first Smithsonian museum, in 1881.

Washington Blossoms

With the streets paved and illuminated, the water running, streetcars and rail transportation operating, and other practical matters well in place, Washington, D.C., was ready to address its appearance. In 1900, as if on cue, a senator from Michigan, James McMillan, persuaded his colleagues to appoint an advisory committee to create "the city beautiful." This retired railroad mogul, with architectural and engineering knowledge, determined to complete the job that L'Enfant had started a century earlier. Using his own money, McMillan sent a committee that included landscapist Frederick Law Olmsted (designer of New York's Central Park), sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and noted architects Daniel Burnham and Charles McKim, to Europe for 7 weeks to study the landscaping and architecture of that continent's great capitals.

"Make no little plans," Burnham counseled fellow members. "They have no magic to stir men's blood, and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble and logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency."

The committee implemented a beautification program that continued well into the 20th century, further enhanced by the efforts of a presidential Commission of Fine Arts, which positioned monuments and fountains throughout the city, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, whose workers erected public buildings embellished by artists. The legacy of these programs is on view today, in the cherry trees along the Tidal Basin, the Lincoln Memorial at the west end of the Mall, the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Library of Congress, Union Station, the Corcoran Gallery, and so many other sights, each in its perfect place in the city.

The American capital was coming into its own on the world stage, as well, emerging from the Great Depression, two world wars, and technological advancements in air and automobile travel, as a strong, respected, global power. More and more countries established their embassies here and the city's international population increased exponentially.

As did Washington's black population, which by 1950 was about 60% of the total. The capital became known as a hub of black culture, education, and identity, centered on a stretch of U Street NW, called "Black Broadway," where Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Pearl Bailey often performed in speak-easies and theaters. (The reincarnated "U Street Corridor" or "New U" is now a diverse neighborhood of blacks, whites, Asians, and Latinos, and a major restaurant-and-nightlife destination.) Nearby, Howard University, created in 1867, distinguished itself as the nation's most comprehensive center for higher education for blacks.

On August 28, 1963, black and white Washingtonians were among the 200,000 who "Marched on Washington" and listened to an impassioned Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his stirring "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where 41 years earlier, during the memorial's dedication ceremony, black officials were required to stand and watch from across the road.

During the final decades of the 20th century, Washington experienced riots following the assassination of Dr. King, protests of the Vietnam War, and one political scandal after another, from Pres. Nixon's Watergate political debacle to D.C. Mayor Barry's drug and corruption problems, to Pres. Clinton's sexual shenanigans. And still, the city flourished. A world-class subway system opened, the Verizon Center debuted and transformed its aged downtown neighborhood into the immensely popular Penn Quarter, and the city's Kennedy Center, Shakespeare theaters, and other arts-and-culture venues came to world attention, receiving much acclaim.

Having begun the 20th century a backwater town, Washington finished the century a sophisticated city, profoundly shaken but not paralyzed by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Peace and prosperity have returned in the years since. The year 2009 glimmers with an "all things are possible" perspective, as a new president arrives to occupy the White House and as the District's young mayor, Adrian Fenty, continues to do his energetic best for his hometown.

History informs one's outlook, but so does the present. Look again at the Potomac River and think of Captain John Smith, but observe the Georgetown University crew teams rowing in unison across the surface of the water, and tour boats traveling between Georgetown and Old Town Alexandria. As you traverse the city, admire L'Enfant's visionary design, but also enjoy the sight of the wonks and office workers, artists and students, and people of every possible ethnic and national background, making their way around town. Tour the impressive landmarks and remember their namesakes, but make time for D.C.'s homegrown attractions, whether a meal at a sidewalk cafe in Dupont Circle, jazz along U Street, a walking tour past Capitol Hill's old town houses, or a visit to an old church where those original immigrants once worshiped.