It was in this train station that United States President James A. Garfield was shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881.

It was in Victorian Gothic style, 55 feet high, of pressed red brick with black mortar and belt courses of Ohio freestone.

The building was lighted from above and the lower part opposite the government grounds was faced with ornamental scroll work.

[4] On May 21, 1872, An Act to confirm the Action of the Board of Aldermen and Common Council of the City of Washington, designating a Depot Site for the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Company, and for other Purposes was ratified.

Temporary platforms were erected, and construction crews started preparing to lay track up Sixth Street.

[2] The site presented problems since it was a former marsh, the bed of Tiber Creek;[2] the station was built over the old Washington City Canal.

[7] On July 2, 1881, it was announced in the local newspapers that United States President James A. Garfield would be leaving for his summer vacation.

[8] En route to board a train to New Jersey, he was shot in the back by assassin Charles Guiteau while walking across the lobby of the Baltimore and Potomac station with James G. Blaine.

While the president survived the initial shooting, doctors subsequently probed his wounds with non-sterilized objects in a frantic search for the bullet.

[13] According to a local newspaper, the station was demolished by order of President Theodore Roosevelt before December 17, 1908, without authority or notice to the public.