Row houses and mansions that once held some of the most powerful people in American history ring Dupont Circle and its marble fountain.
The circle was named for Rear Admiral Samuel Francis du Pont, a Civil War naval hero, and the fountain at its center was installed in 1921 to replace a bronze statue of du Pont that his family found undignified. The fountain was designed by Daniel Chester French, who also designed the seated Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.
In the Gilded Age of the 1880s through the 1910s, the streets radiating from Dupont Circle were lined with the mansions of Washington's wealthiest families: the Pattersons, the Andersons, the Hendersons. These were the houses where Washington's real political and social life was conducted, outside of official government buildings.
In the 1960s and 1970s, as wealthy families moved to the suburbs, these mansions became embassies, think tanks, and clubs. The neighborhood transformed again, becoming a center of Washington's counterculture — artists, students, activists. By the 1980s, Dupont Circle had become the center of Washington's gay community, hosting the first openly gay bars in the city and becoming a focal point for AIDS activism.
Today it is one of Washington's most cosmopolitan neighborhoods: bookstores, restaurants, embassies, row houses, and the fountain where residents come to read, argue, and play chess on any day the weather allows.