Most people know about the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and David Herold after the assassination of President Lincoln. Far fewer know about Lewis Powell’s desperate run to our area as he tried to escape after his attack on Secretary of State William Seward.
The story of the Brookland Baptist Church and the people who created it, in the words of a well-known Brookland developer. Begun as the Queenstown Baptist Church in 1881, it changed as the neighborhood began to grow.
During the Civil War, Camp Barry was an artillery depot on the eastern side of Washington DC. This rare view from an 1863 photograph shows a broad, open landscape before development came after the war.
In 1967, the city began to demolish the Taylor Street Bridge to make way for the North Central Freeway. It was part of a Congressional plan for new highways through the city. Protests erupted and would challenge powerful forces for control of the city’s future.
A short, photo-rich history of the Brookland neighborhood in Washington DC.
The story of the Washington Aqueduct that brought water into the city, and the ill-fated Lydecker tunnel.
Little Isabel Wall was kicked out of the Brookland School in 1909. Whether she was white or black was a question that roiled the neighborhood.
Slavery was legal in Washington DC until 1862, when Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act. Through it, we can learn a great deal about those people held in bondage in what would become Brookland.
The history of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The cornerstone was laid in 1920.
Bygone Brookland 