The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-10-26
THEWASHINGTON OF OLD
THE CITY BEGUN BY L'ENFANT
WAS FINISHED BY ELLIOTT.
There Were Rings and Jobs in the Early
Days OF the Republic, just the Same as
Nova Lottery to Build National
Structures Which Were Unsuccessful

Days of the Republic, just the Same as
Nova Lottery to Build National
Structures which Were Unsuccessful
1t was not until 1796 that the tempest
tossed congress of the thirteen colonies
saw the first evidences of the federal city
that excited the mirth of the wits, the
forebodings of the timid. The circumfer-
ence of the city as it now spreads out under
the great dome is greatly contracted from
the imposing dimensions originally laid
out by the engineer L'Enfant Where the
superb patent Office now stretches in mar
BILE majesty the poetic Frenchman, inspired
by recent events in Paris had marked the
site for a national tabernacle, where ma
tional events were to be religiously COM
memorated, where national obsequies were
to be celebrated, and the dead honored by
the country were to be buried and their
monuments be perpetuated-a sort Of
Pantheon to the glories of the republic.
A BEAUTIFUL PLAN.
Two columns Of majestic proportions
were to rise at specified distances from the
Capitol, the one representing in bronze and
granite the memorabilia of the seven years
war from Lexington TO Yorktown; the
other such prodigies by seas as in ten years
bad made our little navy rival Of
Britain's. The streets running eastward
from the Capitol were to be continuous
arcades, like the sequestered alcoves Of
Bologna and Venice. Between the Capitol
and the presidents residence were to be
elysian fields, and palatial dwellings for
the foreign ambassadors and the public
buildings.
But even at that early day rings" and
'jobs" found their account. The indignant
Frenchman, beset on all sides by venal leg
islators and self seeking jobbers, threw up
his commission in disdain, and the city as
it stands was perfected by Andrew Ellicott.
In 1892 $500 in gold was offered, without
restriction as to calling, to the citizen who
should send in the accepted design for the
presidents housed Five hundred dollars
and lot in the new city or a gold medal
were offered for the best design Of the Cap
itol. To generation that has become IA
miliar with the sums annually voted for
postoffices and custom houses in Plumville
and PumpkintOwn our forefathers will
seem thrifty indeed, embarking upon city
building with grant of $1,000 from the
was supplemented by national lottery,
for which $4,000 tickets were soldl Six
Teen thousand seven hundred and thirty
were to draw prizes, the capital one being
a hotel which was to cost $4,000. The
price of the ticket was 81, and the prizes
ranged from SO to $25, 0OOl
Nor need the student Of current morals
and manners, depressed by the laxity of
our times, wholly despond when he re-
fleets that the lottery was made use of a
hundred years ago not only in the build
ing of our national Capitol-churches,
schools, colleges, even Harvard itself, were
indebted to the wheel for moneys to secure
their usefulness.
THE LOTTERY THAT FAILED.
In 1896 the presidents house and the
Capitol were the only evidences of a city
where the traveller now sees squares and
monuments, edifices and gardens, that
eclipse Paris and Vienna in beauty and
taste. When the lottery failed, and the
sums voted by Virginia and Maryland
gave out, Washington WAS less of city
than the humblest suburb of Jersey City
or Brooklyn. Three hundred thousand
dollars were asked by the commissioners
was distracted by such profiigate outlay
The press Of the time Numbered against
such wasteful extravaganza.
In 1900 the capital was a sore trial to
men accustomed to the homely comforts of
New England and New York. There was
but one good tavern in the town. The
members of congress were herded together
in few mean tenements, ike soldiers in
barrack. Land was rated at twenty-five
cents square foot, the spectators hold
ing for rise! The residents were mostly
negroes, or shiftless vagabOnds thrown out
of regular industry by the visions of sud
den city making.
Though the whole city was covered with
wood. Mrs. Adams. the wife Of the first
president who took up his residence in
Washington, could secure none for the
CRATES of the White House. The house re-
quired thirty servants to keep it in order,
and all the food had to be brought from
Baltimore. Georgetown or Alexandria.
GouverncuI Morris, writing to the Prin-
cess de In Tour ct TaXis in December, 1900.
says sportively: I'VE want nothing here
but houses, cellars, kitchens, well informed
men, amiable women, and other trifes of
this kind to make our city perfect; for we
can walk here rs in the fields and woods,
and, considering the hard frost, the air Of
the city is very pure. Ii, then, you are de
sirous OF coming to live in Washington.
hasten TO assure you that freestone is very
abundant here, that excellent bricks can
he burned, that there is no lack of sites for
magnificent hotels, that contemplated
canals can brine vast commerce 10 the
la, 49,
city in the world for future residence
I 1.rr.r'L