#ghost sites

On this day in 1907 the last train left the Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station.

The Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station was built in 1873, over the old Tiber Creek and Washington City Canal waterway on the present-day site of the National Gallery of Art. Building contractors sank 35-foot piles to secure the foundation of the building on the waterlogged ground. Made of red brick pressed with black mortar, the building's three towers, elaborate roofs, ornamental iron, and red, blue, and green slates exemplified Victorian Gothic architecture. President James A. Garfield was assassinated at the station on July 2, 1881. The station was demolished in 1907 after nearby Union Station was built and the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad consolidated with other railroad companies.

What did the Mall look like over 200 years ago? A map by Dr. Joseph Toner offers a glimpse into how the land was divided.

Three-quarters of a century of a century after the founding of the city of Washington, Dr. Joseph Toner, an amateur historian of the District of Columbia, decided to find out who had owned the land of the nation's capital before the city was established. He created a map which showed the boundary lines of property holdings, labeled with the name of the landholder. This portion of Toner's map shows the boundaries on the land that became the National Mall, with plots owned by David Burns, Daniel Carroll, Notley Young, and Ben Oden. The map was drawn in 1874 but depicts the area circa 1792.

On this day in history, the first train departed from the newly constructed Baltimore & Potomac Railroad station on the National Mall.

In 1872, the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station opened near the Capitol, crossing the parks and lawns of the National Mall. The first train departed at 5 a.m. on July 2 with sixty passengers. The depot buildings were opened in 1874. The presence of the railroad on the Mall was controversial until it was removed in 1907. Although the Mall was barely developed when the railroad arrived, some argued that the noisy, dirty, smelly steam-driven locomotives would ruin the landscape of the park. Others believed that the Mall could accommodate both technology and nature and that the railroad represented progress and economic growth.