Engine Company No. 23 is a modest, two-story red brick firehouse in an Arts and Crafts interpretation of an Italian Renaissance Revival style. Designed by prominent architects Hornblower & Marshall and architect Snowden Ashford (1866-1927), the…

When Old Engine Company No. 12 was under construction in 1896, both sides of North Capitol Street were in rapid development. By then, Washington, DC, had outgrown its original boundaries and development pushed outside and even well beyond the…

Myrtilla Miner (1815-1864), a pioneer for Black female education, established the “Normal School for Colored Girls,” also known as the “Miner School for Girls” in 1851; its eventual large, three-story, symmetrically-massed Colonial Revival brick…

Established in 1864 to educate free people of color, the Military Road School was formerly located on Military Road, which connected DC’s Civil War forts. In particular, the Military Road School was near Fort Stevens barracks, where many people of…

Prior to 1900, the administration and distribution of humanitarian aid in DC was largely dependent on private philanthropic organizations who received federal aid to provide these services. The Progressive Era of the late nineteenth century saw…

Engine Company No. 20 was the first major public structure built in Tenleytown in 1900. At the time, Tenleytown was at the edge of Washington, DC's development. Soon after, the nearby residential subdivisions of Armsleigh Park (1892) and American…

Founded in 1870 as the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth in the basement of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, the school became the country's first public high school for African Americans. By 1891, the school became known as M Street…