Washington, D.C. has long been recognized as one of our nation’s foremost cities. With monumental architecture sprinkled throughout the city, its purpose is to impress visitors with its grandeur. D.C. is also the focus for some of the most important events in American History.
But what many people don’t know is that D.C. is also a hotbed of the weird and unusual. Here are 11 things that you probably never knew about Washington, D.C.
1.) Two presidents kept alligators at the White House.
- Both Herbert Hoover and John Quincy Adams had pet alligators while they lived in the White House located in the U.S. Capitol.
- Adams received his alligator from Marquis de Lafayette and kept it in the bathroom. He sometimes used it to scare his guests.
- Herbert Hoover’s son, Allan, owned a pair of alligators and kept them at the White House.
- Other exotic pets included a pair of tiger cubs kept by Martin Van Buren, a raccoon named Rebecca kept by the Coolidges, and of course, Andrew Jackson’s parrot. Supposedly, the parrot learned a lot of colorful words from President Jackson, and at his funeral had to be removed because it was loudly reciting all of them.
2.) Darth Vader is in the Washington National Cathedral.
- In the 1980s the Cathedral’s two west towers were under construction, so it held a carving design competition for children. The winners’ drawings would be sculpted and added among the gargoyles.
- It just so happened that the third-place winner, Christopher Rader, submitted an excellent drawing of the most famous villain of the time, Darth Vader.
- The head was sculpted, carved, and added to the northwest tower of the cathedral.
- The Cathedral, well aware of its popularity, sells replicas of Vader's head in its gift shop.
- Other amusing gargoyles include one of the Cathedral’s deans with a shocked face from watching the antics of the stone carvers, and another was simply designed to illustrate “bellyache.”
3.) Andrew Jackson’s statue in Lafayette Square is partially made from British cannons.
- The square sits directly across from the White House and the statue is the first equestrian statue in the world to be balanced on the horse’s hind legs.
- It was erected in 1853, but the cannons used to forge the image were taken in the War of 1812.
4.) The original phone number for the White House was 1.
- The first phone was put into the white house in 1877 when Rutherford B. Hayes added a telephone to the telegraph room.
- This phone only rang to the Treasury Department office building.
- The president didn’t have his own telephone until US President Herbert Hoover set one up in the Oval Office in 1929.
- It wasn’t a private line until US President Clinton revamped the phone systems in 1993.
- Today, the White House has an entire switchboard manned by professional operators.
- Fun fact Calvin Coolidge made the most out of the phones in the White House. He liked to ring the Secret Service with an emergency and then hide under his desk while they tried to find him.
5.) There are four marble bathtubs in the basement of the Capitol building.
- The tubs were installed in 1859 when most senators had to stay in boarding houses while Congress was in session in Washington DC.
- The boarding houses had no running water, so the politicians needed somewhere to bathe. The tubs gave them a place to bathe at work.
- One of these tubs can still be seen today in America.
6.) The Lincoln Memorial had a typo.
- Instead of chiseling “F” in the word “future,” an “E” was originally carved by mistake in Lincoln’s second inaugural address on the north wall of the memorial.
- It has since been fixed, but if you look closely you can still see the error.
- Oddly enough, people have become very fond of mistakes. According to the Park Service, which manages the Memorial, “In a place where iconic memorials can make people seem larger than life, it can be helpful to have a reminder that no one is perfect.”
7.) D.C. is home to the nation’s longest continually operating fish market.
- The Maine Avenue Fish Market opened in 1805 as the Municipal Fish Market.
- The market has been located on the same street the whole time, which used to be named Water Street to denote its proximity to the docks.
- In 1938 it was renamed Maine Avenue and the name of the fish market changed with it.
8.) The famous cherry blossom trees were a gift from the mayor of Tokyo.
- The trees were planted in 1912 as a gift of friendship between the two countries.
- First Lady Taft accidentally let slip plans to plant some cherry blossom trees around the Tidal Basin. The Japanese consul learned about the plan and offered to donate 2000 trees. When they arrived in 1910, it was discovered that they were infested with insects, and had to be burned. The City of Tokyo donated another 3000 trees in 1912. You can still see the original trees planted by the First Lady.
- There are still festivals each year to celebrate the cherry blossoms and honor the relationship between the USA and Japan.
9.) Washington, D.C. used to be bigger.
- What we know today as Arlington County, Virginia used to be part of the District of Columbia. The 26 square miles on the other side of the Potomac River were known as Alexandria County, D.C.
- In 1847 the land was returned to the Commonwealth of Virginia, largely at the request of the local residents.
- The reasons for the retrocession, as it came to be known, were mostly economic. Congress had mismanaged infrastructure on the Virginia side of the Potomac, leading to economic stagnation. Also, Alexandria had a thriving market for slave trading. After spreading a rumor that D.C. would abolish the slave trade, many voted for retrocession to keep the Alexandria market open.
10.) There’s a bustling underground network beneath the Capitol.
- Under the Capitol building are miles of tunnels that senators can use to get from one place to another quickly. These tunnels are off-limits to the public unless you’re being led by a member of your Congressman’s or Senator’s staff.
- There is also a crypt made for the First President George Washington under the Capitol that people can see from a small viewing area. The crypt was meant to be a place for General Washington and his wife to be honored, but Washington’s will made it clear that he wished to be buried at his home in Mt. Vernon.
- Underneath the crypt is a nuclear fallout shelter. It’s one of many that were installed in the city during the Cold War.
11.) There is no J Street in D.C.
- As you wander the city, you’ll notice the streets organized neatly by numbers and letters. But you’ll skip right from I to J.
- This is because the letters I and J looked incredibly similar in old English script. The founders decided it was bound to confuse people because the letters were often used interchangeably.
- This is the same reason there was no J company in the army during WWII.
- There is an alternate theory - Some maintain that the city’s planner, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, despised John Jay, our very first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It’s said that Pierre removed J Street as a slight to his enemy. While there’s no hard evidence that that was the case, it certainly makes for a good story.
Washington DC is full of history and hidden gems. Take your class to explore our nation’s capital with GL Travel! Contact us today to learn how to get started.
