Robert Pohl worked for many years as a computer programmer but recovered from that and became a full time stay-at-home dad. With his son now in school, he has expanded his horizons and become a self-taught historian. He has written books about his house as well as Emancipation in the District of Columbia. You can reach Robert at Robert[at]thehillishome.com
One of my current obsessions are old DC guidebooks, guides to the city published before the Civil War. They are fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least that they somehow managed to fill 300+ pages about a city that was pretty small and had almost no sights to see, in some cases by […]
I recently began reading Reveille in Washington, Margaret Leech’s wonderful 1941 book that describes the Civil War from the perspective of DC. In it, you get a real sense of what it was like to survive that disastrous war in the nation’s capital – and get to meet some of the remarkable characters that flocked […]
Last week, I wrote about the Coliseum, a bike-racing track on Capitol Hill, and the various famous bicyclists who raced there. Today, I’ll look at the end of bicycle racing there, and its further uses over the years.
Once again, my readers have come through with a question that had me research a completely new (to me) chapter in Hill history. In this case, it was a query about the use of square 1056, which was used in the early 20th century as a sports field, showing up in the Baist map of […]
As the 11th Street bridge project slowly makes its way towards conclusion, which means that – for now – every trip across it means learning new ways through Anacostia and finding new corners to explore in that part of the city, it seems appropriate to learn a little about the history of this important crossing […]