Foggy Bottom and the West End

Beginning as a small town on the banks of the Potomac, the neighborhoods of Foggy Bottom and the West End grew into the capital’s industrial center at the head of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, with factories, gasworks and breweries. The amalgam of working-class row homes, stately mansions and mills largely disappeared with the coming of the twentieth century, and in their place came the federal government, George Washington University, the Kennedy Center and the Watergate. With a collection of rare vintage images, local authors Matthew Gilmore and Joshua Olsen have compiled a stunning visual narrative of the evolution of these historic Washington, D.C. communities.