Ten public tennis courts stood on the Mall between 3rd and 4th street by 1940 and remained until 1972, when they were removed to make way for the National Gallery of Art's east wing. Although these courts were free to use, they were very popular and…

This newspaper article describes the recreational activities which were free or low-cost in the area today known as East and West Potomac Park. In the 1920s, the part of Independence Avenue which stretches into West Potomac Park was called the…

Andrew J. Downing presented this proposal for a landscape design of the National Mall to President Millard Fillmore in February 1851. He incorporated the Capitol's western front (left) and White House grounds (right), fulfilling Pierre L'Enfant's…

In 1840, Secretary of War Joel Poinsett commissioned Robert Mills to create a plan for the recently proposed Smithsonian Institution's building and the grounds from the Capitol to the future site of the Washington Monument. Mills broke the Mall into…

This excerpt from a video about daily life in Washington, DC, shows people engaged in sports activities on and around the Mall. A section of West Potomac Park, near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, has been used as a polo ground since the…

In the 1930s and 1940s, the National Park Service operated a bicycle rental service near the Tidal Basin Boat House. Starting in 1942, bicycles were rationed items, making it difficult to buy one. Washington residents and war office workers could…

Union soldiers monopolized the spaces of the National Mall during the Civil War. At the outset of the war the US Capitol was a work-in-progress. Despite the war Congress pushed for its completion as a symbol that the ideal of a United States would…

The McMillan Plan was presented to Congress and the public by its authors, the Senate Park Commission, in 1902. It described a comprehensive plan redesigning not only the National Mall but the entire system of parks in Washington, DC. Their proposed…

Henry was a noted scientist in the United States when he was selected to serve as the first Secretary, or chief executive officer, of the new Smithsonian Institution in 1846. He served for 30 years, developing the new museum as a center for research,…

In February 1841 President-elect William Henry Harrison arrived during a snowstorm at the Baltimore and Ohio railway station near the US Capitol. The first president to arrive at an inaugural by train, his inauguration also marked the first time an…