The Residence Act of 1790 gave President George Washington the authority to select the location for the national capital, and the area comprising the District of Columbia was chosen in late 1790.

[2] A surveying commission was chosen in January 1791,[2] and in August 1791 Pierre Charles L'Enfant had delivered his plan for the city to Washington.

[3] Construction of the segment of South Capitol Street from the Capitol to the Anacostia River occurred over the decade, as the roadway was surveyed, trees were felled, brush and stumps removed, a roadway graded, and the street later paved with a variety of surfaces (wood blocks, granite blocks, oiled earth, aggregate, and macadam).

The United States Department of War constructed the George Washington Young cavalry magazine on 90 acres (360,000 m2) of land on Giesborough Point.

[9] Asylum Avenue/Nichols Avenue was the only major southward road through the area until the 1890s, when the lower portion of South Capitol Street was constructed.

[13] In 1895, Randle founded the Capital Railway Company, which constructed streetcar lines over the Navy Yard Bridge and down Nichols Avenue to Congress Heights.

Beginning near St. Elizabeths Hospital, a line of bluffs extended roughly southward until it reached what is now Chesapeake Street SW. (Fort Greble sat atop the southernmost of these cliffs.)

[18][19] The Army Corps of Engineers finally extended South Capitol Street from Nichols Avenue to the District boundary in 1940.

[17] Congress also approved a South Capitol Street bridge in 1940, but the onset of World War II prevented its funding and construction.

Deceleration lanes provide access to Malcolm X Avenue SE and the main gates of Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling and Interstate 295 again.

The section of South Capitol Street between Washington Avenue SW and Suitland Parkway is part of the National Highway System.