In February 1925, the Senate voted to defund and demolish the white and black bathing beaches at the Tidal Basin. Black residents were critical of the unequal funding and facilities at their beach when compared with the white one. In addition,…

This 1901 Washington Post article discusses the newly formed McMillan Commission. Architect Burnham, who arranged World's Fair Grounds, and landscape expert F.L. Olmsted are among the newly appointed members of the committee. The article is hopeful…

This plan of the Smithsonian grounds between 7th and 12th Streets identifies where the new US National Museum Building, now the National Museum of Natural History, was to be built. It also shows the Smithsonian Institution Building (and behind it the…

This five-part panorama shows the National Mall and surrounding buildings, from the Smithsonian "Castle" Institution Building. The left section shows Washington Monument under construction in background, with Agriculture Department at left. The left…

In 1791, President George Washington hired Pierre Charles L'Enfant to create a plan for the layout of the federal city. L'Enfant focused on the area between Tiber Creek, today Constitution Avenue and the Eastern Branch, also called the Anacostia…

In March 1935, the sky went dark over Washington, DC as a dust storm from the midwest blanketed the city. As this offshoot of the Dust Bowl moved over the nation's capitol, Hugh Bennett, head of the Soil Erosion Service in the Department of…

White residents of Washington enjoyed swimming in the Tidal Basin as early as the 1880s. In 1918, the district office of buildings and grounds added buildings to make the beach more enjoyable, like a cabana and diving platform. Like other…

Tiber Creek had been known as Goose Creek before 1790 when the city of Washington, DC was laid out and designated the nation's capital. The creek extended from the base of Capitol Hill to its mouth near the present day Washington Monument. In 1815,…

In 1912, the United States received a shipment of 3,020 cherry trees as a gift from the government of Japan. These were a replacement for a gift of trees in 1909 which had to be destroyed because they were infected with root disease. The trees were a…

Stretching approximately a third of a mile from end to end, the reflecting pool lies between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Built in 1920 on marshland, the pool gradually sank, leaking into the surrounding land. In 2012, the pool…