Roads & Routes

The area now known as Georgetown was once a central meeting place for nearly 40 Native American tribes situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Potomac River. It was inevitable that the very rivers that served these native people would attract the first European settlers to the region, settlers who established Georgetown as a bustling port and key commercial center. In 1791, George Washington fixed the small community's enduring importance by including it in the plans for the new Federal City. Taking you down cobblestone streets, Historic Georgetown: A Walking Tour includes local sites associated with such historic figures as John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, Alexander Graham Bell, Francis Scott Key, and Victorian novelist E.D.E.N. Southworth. Enjoy the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century charms of Georgetown's architecture as you visit private homes, businesses, and social establishments. Climb the stairs on which the climatic scene of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist took place!

Historic Congressional Cemetery dates from the days when Washington, DC, was a burgeoning city on the edge of a malarial swamp.

The stones--sandstone tablets with colonial calligraphy, ornate Victorian statues, 20th-century art nouveau carvings, and contemporary markers in shapes as strange as picnic tables and upended cubes--are a time line of the city. The most distinctive stones are 171 cenotaphs; large cubes designed by Capitol architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe from the same sandstone used in the Capitol. They are found nowhere else. The men and women buried under those stones led lives of beauty, courage, struggle, cunning, leadership, and humor--in short, the stories of American history.

See how Fort Lesley J. McNair withstood the trials, tribulations and test of time and continues to protect our nation's capital today.

From southeast Washington, DC, where the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers meet, Fort Lesley J. McNair still protects America's capital. In 1791, Pierre L'Enfant designated it as a military reservation. The post is the third oldest in continuous operation--as an arsenal, a penitentiary, a hospital, and now, a military education center. It was renamed in 1948 to honor Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, who was killed in World War II. Over the course of two centuries, the fort has borne witness to the British ransacking during the War of 1812; a Civil War explosion that killed female arsenal workers; and the incarceration, trial, and hanging of Lincoln assassination conspirators.

Over time, it became the home of several artillery commands, the first federal penitentiary, the US Army Engineer School, the US Army Music School, the US Army War College and the US Army Band (""Pershing's Own""). Today, it has evolved into the National Defense University, Inter-American Defense College and the headquarters of the Military District of Washington.