The Development of Dupont Circle: Government Corruption and Shady Real Estate Dealings
The 1870s began with great optimism about the prospects of Washington, DC's economic and physical growth. In August 1872, the Board of Public Works, under the leadership of Alexander Shepherd, diverted and buried Slash Run that made the Dupont area a huge bog, awarded a contract for the first concrete pavement to be laid anywhere in the city on Connecticut and Massachusetts Avenues. Connecticut Avenue suddenly, and without any apparent reason, became a twenty-four-foot-wide concrete roadway, flanked by aspen trees and running from Farragut Square to and around Dupont Circle, and from there west on Massachusetts Avenue to the city boundary at Florida Avenue.
Just prior to Shepherd's improvements to Connecticut Avenue, the "Pacific Syndicate" (note that Dupont Circle was originally named "Pacific Circle") with close ties to Shepherd, began snatching up real estate along Connecticut Avenue from Farragut Square to Dupont Circle. The…
