The Tiber

[Faustus]

If this aerial photo looks familiar maybe it's because it's the Tiber in the picture. But the island is not Little Tiber Island, and the river is not Rome's Tiber. The Tiber in this picture is Tiber Creek, Originally known as Goose Creek, it was renamed after Rome's Tiber River as the lands southeast of then Georgetown, Maryland, were selected for the City of Washington, the new capital of the United States.

 

 

It flowed south toward the base of Capitol Hill, then west meeting the Potomac near Jefferson Pier. The pier which lay on the south bank of the Tiber Creek is now "inland" and is now just south of the White House which is the open space with radiating streets.

 

The whole of the creek from the pier to the Potomac has been filled in to create what is now the western end of the Mall. The Creek's mouth is now just north of the Lincoln Memorial. The location of the Jefferson Pier on Tiber Creek near the Potomac shown in an early map. (scroll down for location map)

 

Local farmer Francis Pope is credited with renaming the creek. He also called his 400-acre farm "Rome". Source: John Michael Vlach. "The Mysterious Mr. Jenkins of Jenkins Hill: The Early History of the Capitol Site