The lost and untold history of Washington, DC. New and old content regularly tweeted automagically for your scrolling pleasure.
Washington, D.C.
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In 1621, a ship called the Tiger sailed up the Potomac to trade corn. 26 men aboard. The Nacotchtank ambushed them all. One captive lived with the tribe for 5 years, and his journals shaped what we now call Anacostia.
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Carl Mydans photographed these row houses on Massachusetts Ave near Union Station in September 1935. The yards flooded after every rain, and the privy entrances sat underwater for days.
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February 11, 1964: a snowstorm forced the Beatles onto a train to DC, where 8,092 fans pelted them with jelly beans and Ringo's drum riser had to be spun mid-set.
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In 1906, Montgomery County's prosecutor declared war on a strip of gambling dens and speakeasies just over the DC line. They outlasted him, outlasted Prohibition, and ended with a gambler shot dead in 1935.
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You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at ghostsofdc.org/podcast
Ghosts of DC is now a podcast. Same stories, now something for the Metro or the walk to work.
First up: the Beatles’ first US concert, a shark in the Potomac, and why DC has no J Street.
For 72 years, one flag flew over Prince and St. Asaph in Alexandria without ever coming down. Union troops raised it in 1861 and simply never left this building.
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In March 1977, 12 men seized three DC buildings and 130+ hostages. A reporter was killed, a councilman named Marion Barry took buckshot to the chest, and it ended with three ambassadors reading the Koran.
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In 1924, a 12-year-old girl in a white frock sat for the National Photo Company in DC. Her name sat under the image for 85 years. Then her son found it on Shorpy and filled in what she became.
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In March 1791, George Washington rode into Georgetown, checked into Suter's tavern, and in three days talked a group of Maryland farmers into handing over the ground beneath the White House and Capitol. Even the obstinate Mr. Burns came around.
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In 1927, Marie Rogers sold her Dupont Circle inn. Three years later, she stood on N Street at a trustees' auction and bought it back for $2,000. The deeds tell a story the Tabard doesn't.
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On March 1, 1976, a Foreign Service officer saw a promotion list in a Main State hallway, left work early, and bought a hammer, a shovel and a gas can. By midnight, five people at 8103 Lilly Stone Drive were dead.
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Hains Point isn't named for someone who lived there or fought there. It's named for the Army engineer who literally made the land, dredging it out of the Potomac starting in 1882.
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In 1899, a reporter called the ride "too dizzy to count." In 1960, the trolleys stopped. In 2026, the Park Service signed the papers to tear down DC's last streetcar bridge.
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In 1961, JFK rode down Pennsylvania Avenue and called it "a disgrace." The secret plan that followed would have buried E Street, built a 800x900 ft National Square, and given DC its own Place de la Concorde.
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In 1886, President Grover Cleveland secretly bought a stone farmhouse above Rock Creek to escape the White House. He only owned it three years, but the name stuck to the whole neighborhood. Here's how it happened:
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You've seen the photo: a Black woman, a broom, an American flag. But where did Ella Watson go home at night? We tracked down the narrow rowhouse behind Gordon Parks's American Gothic.
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April 2, 1880: a messenger for the AP walked to the gallows in the yard of the DC jail. The rope did its job. Then it kept going. The headline wrote itself, but the real story is who stood beside him.
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Zoomed into a 1917 photo of E Street NW and found a WWI poster, an opera singer's flyer, and what was then the smallest store in all of Washington. Here's what else was hiding in plain sight:
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Georgetown, 1 a.m. He was supposed to get married that night. Instead, Detective Scrivener was found dead in an alley, a bullet in his heart and a torn necktie clenched in his fist. Murder or suicide?
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