National Capital Parks

It encompasses a variety of federally owned properties in and around the District of Columbia including memorials, monuments, parks, interiors of traffic circles and squares, triangles formed by irregular intersections, and other open spaces.

In 1790, Congress, through the Residence Act, authorized President George Washington to procure an area along the Potomac River to locate a new capital for the nation.

The original lands of the National Capital Parks were acquired pursuant to Congress's authorization with the Residence Act of 1790.

[5][6] During the American Civil War, 1861–1865, the Union Army built a ring of fortifications to protect the city.

[7] In 1926, Congress passed legislation to create a system of parks out of the Civil War fortifications, which allowed acquisition of additional property to provide an interconnecting roadway as a parkway ring around the city.

A contemporary reprint of Samuel Hill's 1792 print of Ellicott's "Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia", published in "Massachusetts Magazine", Boston, May 1792, showing street names, lot numbers, coordinates and legends.