MAPPING AND GEOGRAPHICAL WORLD

In 1790, the rivalry of Northern and Southern states for the capital's location ended when Jefferson's followers supported Hamilton's program for federal assumption of state debts in return for an agreement to locate the national capital along the Potomac River. George Washington personally selected the site of the nation's permanent capital in 1791. Located close to the geographic center of the original 13 colonies, the city was named Washington and the allotted 100 square miles area was named, District of Columbia. Construction began on the White House in 1792 and on the Capital the following year. The U.S. government was officially transferred here in 1800, when Congress held its first session in Washington. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in the new Capital. Pierre Charles L'Enfant's design for the city consisted of a physical framework for the sitting of major government buildings (particularly the White House and Capital) and a grid street pattern overlaid by broad radial avenues, with a series of squares and circles reserved for monuments. The barely completed Capital of the new nation was captured along with the White House and burned in 1814, by the British during the War of 1812, but they were soon reconstructed. Washington, DC's first great period of development took place following the Civil War. The city's continuing growth, tied to the expansion of governmental functions, accelerated during the 1930's and particularly after World War II.