Existing comment:
Stop #2: At the Crossroads:
Eighth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
The large building that wraps around this corner was constructed as a department store in 1892 by Elizabeth A. Haines. She proudly advertised it as "the largest store in the world" that was "built, owned and controlled by a woman." Back then extended families living together typically numbered six to fourteen people, and Haines knew that hundreds of potential customers lived nearby, passing this intersection daily.
When the widow Haines arrived in 1882, she and her children lived above a small store nearby on 11th Street. After ten successful years, she commissioned noted local architect Julius G. Germuiller to design this grand department store. Haines's store -- "50 stores in one" -- was the largest enterprise here amid modest family businesses like George J. Beckert's cigar store at 405 Eighth Street.
Before Washington's founding in 1791, Pennsylvania Avenue was just a bumpy dirt road connecting the Maryland countryside beyond the Anacostia River to the port of Georgetown, Maryland, on the Potomac. Its stagecoach, cart, and carriage traffic grew with the new capital. Noting this traffic, in 1795, Lewis DeBlois built one of the area's first taverns, located on Pennsylvania Avenue and Ninth Street, where a gas station now sits. When William Tunnicliff took over the tavern, it became known as Tunnicliff 's Tavern. It offered food, lodging, and spirits to travelers and residents here before Tunnicliff moved the business closer to the Capitol and its politicians. The tavern has long since closed, but a business near Eastern Market continues to bear the historic name. |