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Alexander Robey Shepherd: The Man Who Built the Nation’s Capital

Amazon.com Price:  $19.99 (as of 03/05/2019 03:00 PST- Details)

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Description

With Alexander Robey Shepherd, John P. Richardson gives us the first full-length biography of his subject, who as Washington, D.C.’s, public works czar (1871–74) built the infrastructure of the nation’s capital in a couple of frenetic years after the Civil War. The story of Shepherd may be the story of his native land after that cataclysm, which left the city with churned-up streets, stripped of its trees, and exhausted.

An intrepid businessman, Shepherd changed into president of Washington’s lower house of delegates at twenty-seven. Garrulous and politically astute, he used each and every lever to persuade Congress to appreciate Peter L’Enfant’s vision for the capital. His tenure produced paved and graded streets, sewer systems, trees, and gaslights, and transformed the fetid Washington Canal into probably the most city’s most stately avenues. After bankrupting the city, a chastened Shepherd left in 1880 to develop silver mines in western Mexico, where he lived out his remaining twenty-two years.

In Washington, Shepherd worked on the confluence of race, party, region, and urban development, in a microcosm of the US. Decided to succeed at all costs, he helped force Congress to accept its responsibility for maintenance of its stepchild, the nation’s capital city.


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