Named After a President Who Never Lived There

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

George Washington chose the site along the Potomac that would eventually carry his name, but he never occupied the city built there. Construction was still underway when his second term ended in 1797, and he died in 1799, a year before the federal government actually moved from Philadelphia to the new capital in 1800. John Adams became the first president to live in the building that would later be called the White House, moving in before it was even finished. Washington did, however, personally select the exact site along the Potomac under the authority the 1790 Residence Act gave him, so the city that bears his name is one he sited but never inhabited.