At the Crossroads ,
that wraps around this cor- ner was constructed as a department store in by Elizabeth A. Haines. She proudly advertised it as “the largest store in the world” that was “built, owned and controlled by a woman.”Back then extended families living together typically num- bered six to fourteen people,and Haines knew that hundreds of potential customers lived nearby, passing this intersection daily. When the widow Haines arrived in ,she and her children lived above a small store nearby on th Street.After ten successful years,she commis- sioned noted local architect Julius G.Germuiller to design this grand department store.Haines’s store — “ stores in one”— was the largest enterprise here amid modest family businesses like George J. Beckert’s cigar store at Eighth Street. Before Washington’s founding in , Pennsyl- vania Avenue was just a bumpy dirt road connect- ing the Maryland countryside beyond the Anacostia River to the port of Georgetown, Maryland,on the Potomac.Its stagecoach,cart, and carriage traffic grew with the new capital. Noting this traffic,in Lewis DeBlois built one of the area’s first taverns,located on Pennsylvania Avenue and Ninth Street,where a gas station now sits.When William Tunnicliff took over the tavern, it became known as Tunnicliff’s Tavern.It offered food,lodging,and spirits to travelers and residents here before Tunnicliff moved the business closer to the Capitol and its politicians.The tavern has long since closed,but a business near Eastern Market continues to bear the historic name.
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