In the mid-nineteenth century, the name generally encompassed the region north of Brightwood Park, west of Fort Totten, east of Rock Creek, and south of the Maryland line.

[3] The DC Government's Citizens Atlas bounds the Brightwood Assessment Neighborhood to the south at Missouri Avenue.

[8] The Passenger Railroad Company ran hourly stagecoaches from Fourteenth Street and Boundary Avenue to the springs, charging 25 cents per ride.

[1]: 98 Before 1889, Brightwood was so far outside the center city that the only transportation to it was a rickety horse-drawn cart driven by an African American man known by the name of Cherry.

[11] Most of the land north of Rock Creek Church Road was farmland, although there were a few clusters of houses around Brightwood and Takoma Park.

The church was named for John Emory of Queen Anne's County, Maryland, who had just been ordained bishop.

[citation needed] Brightwood is home to Fort Stevens, a Civil War fortification built by the Union Army as part of the defenses of Washington, D.C.

The building later became the Brightwood Club House, known for being a nice place to ride a horse and enjoy a drink.

[7] Brightwood was also the location, in 1909, of the first successful flight by a helicopter in the United States, built by Emile Berliner.

[20] His Gyro Motor Company building, which has been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, still stands at 770-774 Girard Street NW.

[22] Other historic sites include Engine Company 22 on Georgia Avenue NW, Fort View Apartments, which overlook the site of Fort Stevens and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Military Road School, which opened in 1864 and was one of the first schools in Washington to open after Congress authorized the education of African Americans.

A restaurant, Meridian, operated on the first floor from January to June 2008,[25] reopened as Brightwood Bistro in August 2008,[26] and closed in 2012.

The corner of Georgia Avenue and Peabody Street was for years the site of the Curtis Chevrolet dealership and a car barn built in 1909.

[33][34] Some neighborhood residents opposed the plan,[35] but the company razed the entire site, including the car barn, in March 2012 and the store opened in December 2013.

[36] The Beacon Center, a $55.3 million redevelopment surrounding the historic Emory United Methodist Church in Brightwood, opened in 2019.

The project delivered 99 housing units: 91 reserved for tenants earning 60 percent or less than the area's median income, and eight for people leaving homelessness.

Brightwood also has the highest percentage of Ethiopians (16%) and Salvadorans (19%) of any neighborhood;[38] Salvadorans and Ethiopians are the two largest immigrant groups in Washington D.C. Brightwood's immigrant communities are mainly from Ethiopia, Eritrea, El Salvador and the rest of Central America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines.