This Week in DC History: Jan. 22 – 28
America’s capital city hosts so many significant events that it only makes sense that there are notable historical anniversaries every week of the year of local and national renown. Here are some notable occurrences in and around the District during this week in the city’s history.
First electronic vote is held
Jan. 23, 1973
Eighty-seven years after the initial proposal for an automated system to record votes, the U.S. House of Representatives used its first electronic voting system on Jan. 23, 1973, to record a quorum call. The New York Times compared the spectacle to a “roomful of children with a new mechanical toy.” More than 300 members in the House chamber took part in the historic vote that day. Before electronic voting, hand-held counters were used to keep track of votes on the House floor.
A devastating fire hits the Smithsonian Castle
Jan. 24, 1865
Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was busy working in the Smithsonian Castle when he realized the building was on fire. Caused by a stove that was incorrectly installed on the second floor, the fire nearly consumed the entire building. The blaze destroyed the Smithsonian’s great auditorium (at the time, the largest such space in Washington), as well as a large portion of the Smithsonian’s early treasures. Congress adjourned for the day and city residents rushed to the Smithsonian’s grounds. Fortunately, no lives were lost, and the Castle was renovated after the Civil War.
Nor’easter slams the District
Jan. 25, 2000
District residents who have lived here since the beginning of the millennium will remember the 18 inches of snow that hit after forecasters initially predicted the storm would track out to sea. Instead, on the eve of Jan. 25 that year, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning, which quickly escalated into emergency weather bulletins. Reflecting a decade later in 2010 on the meteorologists’ poor predictions, Capital Weather Gang reporter Steve Tracton attributed the mistakes to “forecasters taking the models at face value (with virtual disregard for radar and satellite).”
Portrait of former Commissioner Louis Brownlow goes to Wilson Building
Jan. 26, 1959
In 1878, Congress passed the Organic Act to permanently establish the Board of Commissioners as the District of Columbia’s administrative body, though it was replaced with an appointed council in 1967 in the lead-up to Home Rule in 1973. For nearly a century, though, the board consisted of three members, all appointed by the U.S. president; one member served as the president of the board. On Jan. 26, 1959, painter Margaret Elliot presented the DC government with a portrait of a respected former commissioner — Louis Brownlow — and it was hung in Room 500 of the District Building. (The DC Council meets in that room today in what’s now known as the John A. Wilson Building.) Appointed by President Woodrow Wilson, Brownlow — at the time a newspaper reporter in his 30s — served as a commissioner from 1915 until 1920, including nearly three years as the presiding member. During his tenure, he was a champion of the nascent public administration training movement and saw the Metropolitan Police Department unionize. Local historian and activist Sam Smith once described Brownlow as “conscientious and skilled” and a “pioneer city administrator,” and he’s also been characterized as a proponent of home rule for DC. After his time in DC, Brownlow served as city manager in various cities and taught political science at the University of Chicago and elsewhere. In Washington: A History of the Capital, 1800-1950, eminent local historian Constance McLaughlin Green wrote that Brownlee gained renown “from coast to coast as an authority on public administration.” He died in 1963 at the age of 84.
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