Episode 1 of 2
Commissioners name the city Washington
- When
- September 9, 1791
- Where
- Federal city on the Potomac River
- Part of
- Naming of Washington, D.C.
Three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington on September 9, 1791.
On September 9, 1791, the three commissioners appointed to supervise the capital's construction named the city Washington in honor of President George Washington. At the same time, the federal district was named Columbia, a poetic name for the United States in common use at the time, derived as the feminine form of Columbus in reference to Christopher Columbus.
Sources
- Washington, D.C. Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-01
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.