was operated to serve
Union soldiers during the
U.S. Civil War.
18th century In 1727,
Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, then governor of the
Province of Maryland, awarded a
land grant for present-day Mount Pleasant to James Holmead. This estate, later named "Pleasant Plains", included the territory of present-day neighborhoods of
Adams Morgan,
Columbia Heights,
Meridian Hill, and
Pleasant Plains (which only covers a portion of the original estate of the same name). After the creation of the
District of Columbia in 1791, Pleasant Plains estate became part of
Washington County, but not part of the City of Washington. In 1794 and 1796, noted Georgetown businessman Robert Peter conducted the first land surveys in the area and created maps for tracts of some of his land in Mount Pleasant for transactions with commissioners of the city.
19th century In 1861,
William Selden, former
Treasurer of the United States, owned of land north of Pierce Mill Road, but having been a Confederate sympathizer, was forced was forced to sell his land at a low price and move back to Virginia. The purchaser was
New England native Samuel P. Brown, who built a house and also allowed the
Mount Pleasant General Hospital to be constructed on his land. After the
American Civil War, Brown began selling his land in parcels. He named the area
Mount Pleasant Village because it contained the land having the highest elevation within the original Pleasant Plains estate. Brown sold all of his land except for the parcel he retained around his house at 3351 Mount Pleasant Street, NW. In the 1870s, a horse-drawn
streetcar began traveling between the Fourteenth and Park intersection to downtown Washington city, making this the first
streetcar suburb in the District of Columbia. In 1878, Mount Pleasant merged into Washington when the city's boundaries became
coterminous with those of the District.
20th century in 1924. In 1901,
16th Street NW was extended north of Florida Avenue, establishing the boundary of the neighborhood. Mount Pleasant developed rapidly as a
streetcar suburb after the expansion of the mechanized
Washington streetcars along 16 1/2 Street (now Mount Pleasant Street) in 1903. Many houses and apartment buildings were constructed between 1900 and 1925, primarily marketed to middle- to
upper middle class people. In 1925, the city built the
Mount Pleasant Library, designed by
Edward Lippincott Tilton and partially funded by philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie. In 1987, the neighborhood was designated as a historic district. The neighborhood was
majority-minority in 1990, with African Americans making up 36% of the population, Latinos 26%, and whites 35%. In May 1991, the
Washington, D.C. riot of 1991 erupted following the shooting of Daniel Enrique Gómez by an
MPD officer. The riot, which injured twelve people and destroyed several buildings in the neighborhood, was a pivotal moment in the emergence of Latino activism in DC. In response, MPD Chief
Isaac Fulwood, and city government began an outreach effort to the Latino population.
21st century The
2010 United States census, the
ZIP Code 20010, which includes Mount Pleasant, was one of the "most whitened" areas of the country, with the percentage of non-Hispanic white residents increasing from 22% in 2000 to 46.7% in 2010. As of 2021, housing prices had risen significantly. In 2024, Mt. Pleasant was named one of the "coolest neighborhoods in the world" by
Time Out magazine. ==Geography==