Lost Capitol Hill: Street Railways

Public transportation on the Hill has been a work in progress since day 1, so the changes in progress today are hardly anything new. The addition of the Circulator and the exciting promise of the street cars are adding great new options for getting around our neighborhood.

I have in the past mentioned the Herdic Phaeton stables that were built on the corner of 10th and C Streets SE. Today, I want to take a closer look at the horse-drawn mode of public transport, and will look at the three “Public Railways” (as they were called then) that existed in 1880.

The first attempt at public transportation had actually been started in 1800, when a stage coach was operated between Georgetown and William Tunnicliff’s tavern (just behind the Capitol at 1st and A Streets NE) This did not last long, and it wasn’t until the 1830s that another attempt was made. Once again, the mode of transportation was horse-drawn carriages, which ran from Georgetown to the Navy Yard. Over the next decades, these expanded, other competitors began operations, the various companies merged down to two lines — and both of these went out of business with the introduction of street railways, which ran on tracks, making for a much more comfortable ride.

The first street railway was the Washington and Georgetown Railroad (W&GRR), which first opened in Summer 1862, and by that October, was running from the Navy Yard to Georgetown. Given the W&GRR’s success, it’s hardly surprising that other attempted to emulate them. On July 1, 1864, the Metropolitan line began operations, running its carriages from the Capitol to the War Department (today the Eisenhower Office building next to the White House) along H street NW. Finally in 1870, the Anacostia and Potomac River Railway was chartered, though they did not begin operations until 1875.

There were numerous other lines, but none of them actually went to Capitol Hill, so will be ignored for now. According to statistical maps drawn for the city in 1880, there were three lines on the Hill: The Anacostia and Potomac line, the Washington and Georgetown Company line, and the Metropolitan line.

1880 map showing the three street railway routes on Capitol Hill. The Anacostia line is at the bottom, the Metropolitan line is in blue, the W&GRR is in red. (LOC)

The W&GRR went from the Navy Yard up 8th Street SE to Pennsylvania Avenue, then west around the Capitol and along Pennsylvania until it reached M Street. It terminated just past what is now Wisconsin Avenue. The W&GRR had a number of other routes through the city as well, it and the Metropolitan line together had about 2/3 of the track laid in DC.

The Metropolitan Line ran from East Capitol and 9th streets west to the Capitol, then around the Capitol to the north, zigzagging up the streets of DC just north of Pennsylvania to Georgetown, where it split into multiple lines

The Anacostia and Potomac line, though by far the smallest of the three, with just under three miles of track to the others ten, was the only one to cross a bridge. It began at M Street on the SW waterfront, went due east down M to 11th Street, then south across the bridge into Anacostia, ending on what is today Martin Luther King Blvd.

The only real competitor that the street railways had at the time was the Herdic Phaeton Company, which used specially designed horse-drawn carriages (though not on tracks) to transport customers. You can read more about his form of transportation here.

Neither of these two modes lasted terribly long, as an 1889 law promoted the change from horsepower to methods that did not require constant cleaning of the city streets. The W&GRR switched over to cable cars, but eventually, all public transportation in the District switched to electric power. More about the electric streetcars in next week’s column.