Ghosts of DC

The lost and untold history of Washington, DC. New and old content regularly tweeted automagically for your scrolling pleasure.

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/lNqfQrJpw6

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/2VTAtVsMQj

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/AI1ZnUH2J6

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/crNXtupFZE

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/NPB1rkzffg

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/ms9oDkVaR7

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/6TXNNkV8K1

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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:

https://t.co/G8kC01G5Er

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/BMEPZb9Xdt

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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.

https://t.co/WY2Sr1AyC6

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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:

https://t.co/MFra8SfrS4

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

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?

https://t.co/D7bRFmJtnO

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

Frank couldn't read or write. Ashby had just four terms of school. Lewis Hine photographed both boys on the night shift at an Alexandria glass factory in the 1910s, and their stories will stop you cold.

https://t.co/1jHlEMOsrR

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

September 1872: 200 laborers show up at dusk to tear down a Washington market before dawn. By the next afternoon, a butcher and a 14-year-old boy were dead. Boss Shepherd signed the order.

https://t.co/KBhjRCopAY

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

March 1912: Cleveland Park boys in a backyard shack called themselves Robin Hood's merry men, roasting "venison" by lamplight. Then someone knocked over the lamp, and three fire companies came charging down Newark Street.

https://t.co/v8yuZgWpOA

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

For 130 years, the most ceremonial street in DC had a name that sounded like a highway exit: B Street. The story of how it became Constitution Avenue involves a buried creek, a doomed market, and a congressman who died two days before his bill was signed.

https://t.co/SQms1ETp3S

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

Just west of Rosslyn was a ravine so notorious that farmers rode through it in armed convoys. They called it Dead Man's Hollow, and the bodies kept turning up.

https://t.co/7Qnoj5FGCy

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

In 1937, the Washington Post promised Barnaby Woods buyers 'careful architectural and social restrictions.' We went looking for them in the deeds. What we found a few blocks away was spelled out in full.

https://t.co/jhi8GIGtLA

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

In 1925, a sitting US president walked up 16th Street to lay the cornerstone of a Jewish community center and declared that "Hebraic mortar cemented the foundations of American democracy."

https://t.co/DOQeLynBFR

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

Before it towered over DC, the National Cathedral was a maze of scaffolding and stone. These vintage photos from the 1920s and 30s show it rising piece by piece.

https://t.co/ATCbjS0iIw