I know, I know, right now, it’s all hurricanes all the time. But try to cast your mind back to, oh, last Tuesday, when the city was rattled by an earthquake. It was a startling event, but, as GreaterGreaterWashington showed, hardly unique in the history of DC. Obviously, I was intrigued – was there a Capitol Hill connection to any of these old earthquakes?
In reading up on the earthquakes Mr. Muller described in his post, I could find no direct connections to Capitol Hill. It appears that none of the damage done by these events was on the Hill. Or at least nothing major.
But there was an intriguing article that was published on April 20, 1918. This was ten days after a real earthquake hit DC, which is why it was of immediate interest: “Southeast Shaken by a Mysterious Earth Rumbling.” was the headline. The Washington Times continued:
A rumbling of the earth, at first believed to be caused by an earthquake or a tremendous explosion occurring near Washington, caused cinsiderable [sic] excitement shortly before noon today among residents of Southeast.
The article goes on to describe what was felt at 12th and M SE and at the fifth precinct office at 5th and E SE. The officers at the latter location “heard the rumbling noise distinctly.” The harbor police went one step further: “[T]hey believed it was due to blasting at the Columbia Stone quarries in Georgetown, but officials of that company stated that they had not blasted at the quarry that week.”
After the 1897 earthquake, Howard F. Johnson tried to improve the sales of his homes through this bit of targeted fear. Wesley Park was where American University now is. (LOC)
It was quickly determined not to be an earthquake, and this was confirmed by the director of the seismic observatory at Georgetown University, Rev. Francis A. Tondorf. He said that the shock was due to air compression, and that his instruments had failed entirely to pick up on any disturbances in the ground.
The Washington Post the next day wrote that they had contacted the Indian Head Naval Proving Ground, the Washington Navy Yard, and the Washington Steel and Ordnance Plant, none of whom would admit that they had set off any explosions the previous day.
And that, unfortunately, was the extent of the coverage of this event; in any case, a major earthquake hit California the next day, pushing all coverage of minor disturbances that had caused no damage out of the pages of the newspaper.