The year-round Fort Dupont Ice Arena skating rink and the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum are nearby.

The Nacotchtank Native Americans were the first settlers to inhabit the area now known as Good Hope, living and fishing along the nearby Anacostia River.

[4][6][7] European settlement in Southeast Washington first occurred in 1662 at Blue Plains (now the site of the city's sewage treatment plant just to the west of the modern neighborhood of Bellevue), and at St. Elizabeth (now the site of St. Elizabeths Hospital psychiatric hospital) and Giesborough (now called Barry Farm) in 1663.

[8] Lord Baltimore granted ownership of the Good Hope area and much of what is now Southeast D.C. (giving it the name "Chichester") to John Meeks in 1664.

Consequently, in 1818, the privately owned "Upper Navy Yard Bridge" was built over the Anacostia River at 11th Street SE.