Frontage roads near the north end are known as Kenilworth Avenue, which is the name of MD 201 after splitting from the main freeway.

The southern portion of the route, from the Beltway to the 11th Street Bridges, was given a financial boost when it was included in the Interstate Highway System.

Work on the Kenilworth Expressway, the portion from East Capitol to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, began in 1952 and ended in October 1957.

[3][4] Initial construction of the Anacostia Freeway began in the summer of 1957 with the East Capitol Street overpass over Kenilworth Avenue and was completed in 1964.

The southern portion of the Anacostia Freeway, I-295, officially ends on a ramp to the 11th Street Bridges, though it originally referred to everything south to Oxon Cove.

For years the northern portion between there and the District Line was often referred to as Route 295 even though it bore no such markings.