The Mendota: The First Apartment Building in Kalorama Triangle
In 1901, real estate developer George Truesdell sold a plot of land on which the greenhouse of his large Managasset estate had once stood at the southwest corner of Kalorama Road and Twentieth Street to the Iowa Apartment House Company. On this lot, the first apartment building in Kalorama Triangle, the Mendota, a Sioux Indian word meaning “mouth of the river,” was constructed at 2220 Twentieth Street and opened in 1902.

The Mendota circa 1902. Author's collection.
The Mendota was the first of three apartment buildings designed by James G. Hill, the others being Stoneleigh Court and the Ontario. Hill also designed the twin townhouses at 2012-14 Kalorama Road in 1908 for the Iowa Apartment Company as well.
When completed, the Mendota had forty-nine apartments: twenty-three one-bedrooms, twelve two-bedrooms, seven three-bedrooms and seven four-bedrooms. For those who chose not to cook or did not have their domestic staff with them, the top floor featured a public dining room. The ground floor contained a drugstore and a doctor’s office. Prominent residents of the Mendota included its architect, James Hill, Kalorama developer Lawrence Sands and his wife, Margaret Foyle Sands, who was one of the daughters of John Little. The Mendota was also home to progressive Nebraska senator George W. Norris and Jeanette Rankin, the first woman to serve in Congress.

Jeanette Rankin, the first woman to serve in Congress.
Library of Congress.
After being elected in 1916, Rankin boldly stated, "I may be the first woman member of Congress but I won’t be the last." Rankin served only two terms in Congress, yet each coincided with U.S. entry into both world wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of fifty members of Congress who voted against entry into World War I in 1917, and the only member of Congress who voted against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. She died in 1973 at the age of 92 at her apartment in Carmel, California.
A play A Single Woman, written by peace activist Jeanmarie Simpson, was based on Rankin's life and was made into a film in 2008, narrated by Martin Sheen with music by Joni Mitchell. The Mendota was converted to a co-op in 1952.
Posting adapted from the author's book Kalorama Triangle: The History of a Capital Neighborhood.