Pennsylvania Avenue

Pennsylvania Avenue, stretching from the Capitol to the White House, has served for more than 200 years as “America’s Main Street,” a ceremonial avenue associated with free expression, presidential inaugurations and funeral processions, triumphant parades, and angry demonstrations. Thomas Jefferson referred to it by name in a 1791 letter, the earliest known use, though why that name was chosen or when it became official is unknown. Planned in 1791 by Pierre L'Enfant as the grand avenue linking the president’s house and the federal house, it was still a dirt road when the federal government moved from Philadelphia to Washington in 1800, and despite later houses, hotels, shops, and oil street lamps in the 1840s, it remained muddy and rough, with pigs and cows roaming it. During the Civil War, Washington became the center of the national war effort, population surged, entertainment businesses prospered, and after the Western Union telegraph office moved to Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th Street, news bureaus clustered there in what became “Newspaper Row”; in 1865 the avenue saw Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration, his funeral procession, and the grand review celebrating Union victory. After the war, new wood-block pavement was laid in 1871, newspapers including The Washington Post in 1877 and The Washington Bee in 1882 established themselves on or near the avenue, telephone service arrived in 1878, and nearby landmarks such as the National Museum in 1881 and the Washington Monument in 1885 reflected a city shaped by invention and business. In the twentieth century, America’s entry into World War I expanded Washington’s population and federal workforce, women marched there for suffrage, a great parade welcomed troops home in 1919, and in the years that followed the avenue hosted celebrations, protest movements including the Bonus Army, and redevelopment in the 1930s that created the Federal Triangle. World War II brought another population boom, and in 1945 thousands celebrated the war’s end there. In a segregated city, local activism and a 1953 U.S. Supreme Court ruling helped end most segregation in Washington’s restaurants, theaters, and similar establishments, while the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968 made the avenue a stage for the national civil rights movement and many other demonstrations. Beginning in 1972, renewal funded by public and private money renovated historic buildings such as the Willard Hotel and the Evening Star building, added new businesses, and left the street as part of the rejuvenated Penn Quarter and a continuing route for celebration and free expression.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States