History of Southeast Preview

This blog came about from reading JDLand.com, my interest in the Washington City Canal and my love of history.  JD's page on Near Southeast came about as she puts it, "See what happens when someone with a digital camera gets way too interested in a neighborhood."  Her page has for the most part focused on Near-Southeast for about the last 10 years with some smattering of some older history going back a few decades.  I love history but even though I don't have a degree in history maybe one day I will but in the meantime I'll just have to remain a closet historian.  Anyway, while it was JD's blog that peaked my curiosity of the area it was "dog park" section of Canal Park (and the debris coming up through the ground) that really peaked my interest and the last two months of research has been an interesting ride.  The real intent of this blog is to collect the smattering of early SE history and post it in one spot.

While my focus is on the old history of SE some of it will showcase some of the problems still facing SE today and hopefully be able to explain how SE became what it is today.  Some of the topics I'll write about are the Washington City Canal, the Marine Barracks expansion, some interesting tidbits around SE that time forgot about (cobble stone streets/old train tracks), SE/SW Freeway, Alley life in SE, Sugar Refinery, Barry's Chapel, Thomas Law, William Greenleaf, William Prout (Who's Who of early DC), early churches of DC, a small jump across South Capitol in SW and everyone's favorite topic:  the Va Ave train tunnel.