Residents and businesses of Capitol Hill thrive with its history every day. Click on the links below to learn more about the historic sites of Capitol Hill - Our Nation's Neighborhood.
All history content located in this section has been excerpted from either Washington Perspective (Thanks to Ruth Ann Overbeck) or the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals (CHAMPS) Web site. For more extensive history information, community calendar, local dining/shops, and a professional listing, please visit the CHAMPS site.
Capitol Hill History
Back in 1791 Capitol Hill was known as Jenkin's Hill. It was a rural area, with a smattering of farms, about a hundred residents, few amenities, and a terrific view. However, Washington's architect Pierre L'Enfant called it "a pedestal waiting for a monument," and proceeded to lay out streets, alleys, parks, federal buildings, and begin construction of Congress House, which Jefferson later named the Capitol.
The Hill rapidly became a bustling village. Along the Anacostia River warehouses, wharves and a sugar refinery sprang up, houses were built for laborers, and Congressmen settled into boarding houses near the Capitol. The new residents constructed shops and taverns, a market churches, schools, a library, Congressional and Methodist cemeteries, and the Naval Masonic Lodge. And in 1799, George Washington established the Washington Navy Yard as a ship building center and major port.
Though the new Capitol and much of the Navy Yard were destroyed when the British marched up Maryland Avenue in 1814, growth quickly resumed. By mid-century German and Italian craftsmen had arrived to work on the Capitol, and Irish immigrants found employment at the Navy Yard. Commercial opportunities also enabled the Hill's slave and free black population to use their earnings to buy freedom for themselves and their families, and then build homes, churches and schools.
Yet Capitol Hill was still just a village, with its population centered around the Capitol and the Navy Yard. Then came the boom years of the Civil War. Government workers, military personal, and businessmen in search of government contracts poured into town. Thousands arrived, and many never left, so the village began to expand. During the 1870's Eastern Market was built, the horse-drawn streetcar system was expanded, rows of red brick Victorian houses lined newly paved streets, and Frederick Douglas joined President Ulysses S. Grant in unveiling the Emancipation Statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Park - which was a the time a park within a park, surrounded as it was by nothing but empty lots.
The next and final great wave of growth came early in the 20th Century with the construction of the Library of Congress, Union Station, the Post Office and the House and Senate office buildings. Modernity brought electricity to light the streets and power the streetcars, brick sidewalks gave way to asphalt and concrete, and the U.S. Botanical Gardens became a marvel at the foot of the Capitol.
Though Capitol Hill is no longer a rural village, it still has plenty of small town charm. Here lovely homes sit beneath hundred year old trees and neighbors take pride in their neighborliness. Children walk to school, dogs romp in our parks, people putter in their yards, Eastern Market serves a sour town square, yet this may well be the most unique small town on earth. Where else is the library the Library of Congress, where else is the Smithsonian in strolling distance, and where else are Friday night concerts by the President's Own Marine Band? And what other small town allows a glimpse of the Capitol around nearly every corner; a constant and compelling reminder that we live at the epicenter of the most powerful nation in the world.