The Evening Star of Washington reported the appointment of a three-member commission charged with determining compensation for property owners whose land on Capitol Hill was being condemned for construction of the United States Senate’s first permanent office building. The commission consisted of Robert I. Fleming, an architect and member of the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners; James F. Oyster, a prominent Washington businessman and civic leader; and H. Rozier Dulaney, a real estate professional. Their appointment marked a decisive stage in the federal acquisition of Square 686, a densely occupied city block immediately north of the Capitol. The proceeding transformed both the institutional organization of the Senate and the physical and social landscape of Capitol Hill.
Square 686 was bounded by B Street, C Street, First Street, and Delaware Avenue NE. The square had been divided into lots as early as 1799 and developed into an established residential and commercial community. By the 1900 census, approximately 300 people lived there. Of those residents, 252, or 84 percent, rented their homes. The block contained residences, businesses, a Quaker meeting house, and the Eastern Dispensary and Casualty Hospital. Its inhabitants included federal employees, railroad workers, teachers, stenographers, policemen, bookbinders, masons, domestic workers, and laborers.
A narrow interior alley called Orial Court divided the block from north to south. Insurance maps indicate that the fifteen-foot-wide court contained approximately twenty residences. The 1900 census recorded 88 people living there, predominantly African Americans. Occupational patterns distinguished many Orial Court residents from those living around the perimeter of Square 686. Census records identified numerous court residents as domestic servants, washerwomen, laborers, drivers, and other wage workers. The condemnation therefore affected a socially and economically varied Washington neighborhood, including a significant African American community.
The federal acquisition originated in the Senate's serious shortage of working space. Between 1850 and 1900, fourteen states entered the Union, adding twenty-eight senators. Senate staff and committee responsibilities also expanded. Senators and employees occupied increasingly inadequate quarters within the Capitol, including converted storerooms, basement spaces, attic areas, and rented accommodations. An inspection of the nearby Maltby Building, which the Senate had acquired for additional offices, found structural deficiencies in early 1904. Congress consequently authorized construction of a dedicated Senate office building.
On April 28, 1904, Congress provided $750,000 for land acquisition and $2.25 million for construction. Senators Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois, Jacob H. Gallinger of New Hampshire, and Francis M. Cockrell of Missouri formed the Senate Building Commission. Square 686 had already been selected because its location north of the Capitol complemented the planned House office building south of the Capitol grounds.
The Senate initially attempted voluntary purchases. In May, Washington banker and real estate specialist Samuel Bieber negotiated with property owners. The square contained 45 parcels and, according to later title work, 178 individuals or entities possessing financial interests in them. Negotiated prices exceeded figures acceptable to the Senate Building Commission, prompting federal officials to initiate condemnation proceedings.
The District of Columbia Supreme Court consequently appointed Fleming, Oyster, and Dulaney as commissioners. During August and September 1904, they inspected Square 686 and received testimony concerning property values. Their work represented the formal mechanism through which privately held urban land became federal property. One surviving protest illustrates the effects on tenants as well as owners. W. H. Smith, a Government Printing Office employee who rented rooms at 28 B Street NE, petitioned the court on August 9. He argued that displacement would impose moving expenses and make comparable housing difficult to obtain. Surviving records do not establish whether he received the $500 compensation he requested.
The commission submitted its findings in October. It identified 45 property settlements totaling $746,111, nearly exhausting the congressional land appropriation. The Senate Building Commission approved the awards, and payments were distributed in December. By January 1905, owners and tenants had vacated Square 686. Demolition followed, and by the summer of 1905 the residential block had largely disappeared.
The Senate Office Building opened on March 5, 1909. It contained offices for senators, committee rooms, and other facilities that permanently changed the way senators conducted legislative business. In 1972, the Senate renamed it the Richard B. Russell Senate Office Building.
The events of August 11, 1904, therefore hold significance beyond the construction of a federal building. The appointment of the condemnation commission documented a moment when congressional institutional growth directly reshaped an established Washington neighborhood. Square 686 changed from a mixed residential community containing hundreds of Washingtonians into part of the expanding federal Capitol complex. Its history preserves an important record of the people, homes, institutions, and local urban landscape that existed beneath one of Washington's most recognizable centers of government.
References / More Knowledge:
Architect of the Capitol. “Russell Senate Office Building.” Architect of the Capitol.
https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/buildings-grounds/senate-office-buildings/russell
United States Senate Historical Office. “Square 686: A Capitol Hill Neighborhood Transformed.” United States Senate, December 16, 2025.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/senate-stories/square-686-a-capitol-hill-neighborhood-transformed.htm
United States Senate Historical Office. “U.S. Capitol Complex.” United States Senate. Includes references to “Commission Named,” Evening Star, Washington, D.C., August 11, 1904, and related contemporary condemnation records.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/senate-stories/us-capitol-complex.htm
United States Senate. “The Russell Senate Office Building.” United States Senate.
https://www.senate.gov/about/historic-buildings-spaces/office-buildings/russell-building.htm
United States Senate. “Naming of Buildings and Rooms.” United States Senate.
https://www.senate.gov/about/historic-buildings-spaces/office-buildings/naming.htm