The Equitable Life Insurance Company was founded in Washington in 1885. Following World War II, the industry entered an age of major expansion and significant profit as it invested life insurance funds in housing mortgages. During the 1950s,…

Founded in 1891, the Potomac Electric Company merged with the Washington Railway and Electric Company to become the Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) in 1902. In 1907, PEPCO established a new central generating power plant along Benning Road,…

Built for Tenleytown’s blue-collar residents, these double houses on Chesapeake Street stand out among the nearby single-family contemporaries. Of the four houses, two were converted into multiple units while one served as a boarding house. These…

Tenleytown's Jackson-Reed High School (originally called Woodrow Wilson High School) exemplifies the high standard of architectural quality that characterized Washington's public school design and construction until the mid-twentieth century. The…

The Jesse Reno School was built in 1903 for African American children. Designed by municipal architect Snowden Ashford, the school had four rooms on the first floor and four on the basement level. Its formal Renaissance-style design acknowledges the…

In the 1880s, Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck began a mail-order business for watches. The mail-order business brought products to people that did not have the financial means or time to travel to urban commercial centers that dominated the retail…

Formerly called “The Rest,” the Lyles-Magruder House was once a part of Mrs. Magruder’s great estate, contemporary with other important estates such as Mount Vernon and Clean Drinking Manor. The building has incredible historical significance over…

Erected between 1817 and 1827 by the first United States Register of the Treasury, Joseph Nourse (1754-1841), The Highlands is a late-Georgian styled home. The Nourse family, who owned and lived in the house for a century, were prominent…

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…

The Western Union Telegraph Company Tenley Radio Terminal is a landmark in engineering history. Built between 1945 and 1947, it served as a transmission and receiving station in an experimental radio relay triangle connecting New York, Philadelphia,…