6. The Historical Boundaries of Washington D.C. (and other trivia)
A survey party placed stones one mile apart to mark the boundary of the District of Columbia in 1791. In 1916 the Daughters of the American Revolution put up fencing to preserve the remaining stones and took their photographs.
Read more about the Boundary Stones of the District of Columbia.
These images are part of a set of lantern slides held by D.C. Public Library. They were purchased in 1944, a collection of 1800+ lantern slides and glass plate negatives purchased from photographer E.B. Thompson for $1,000. Two hundred and thirty of them are available in this Flickr Commons photo set. The collection has many interesting historical photos of the goings on in the US Capitol including Pauline, a pet of President Taft, grazing on the White House lawn.
An image of Marguerite Cassini and one of Alice Roosevelt, a pair of women whose friendship was said to have “all the violence of a bomb.”
And this likely-composite photo showing President McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, the vice president who became president after McKinley’s assassination.
We’ve also got stories about Irish folktales, UFO Desks, epic kayaking, caravaning over Christmas, decorated war pigeons, community-based photo id-ing, meeting some photographers, prisoners-turned-artists, tattooing in the 1930s, turkish street photography, aviatrices, books in motion, a cool bell, surprise celebrities, and, of course, cat pictures.
All part of Flickr Commons’ sixteenth birthday.