Shortly after his induction into office, President Grant developed a plan to improve the condition and appearance of the Capital City. He considered it unworthy of its name, and no credit either to the nation or the name of General Washington, who had selected the site and had approved the designs and plans made for its development by his friend and aide, the gifted Major Pierre L’Enfant. With each war of the nation, the Capital City experienced a mushroom growth in population and in business enterprise. Then would come a slump financially and physically. The effect of the slump following the close of the Civil War was not conducive to either national or civic pride in the city as the seat of government for an already great and growing nation. The streets were wagon trails of alternating mud and dust; the pavements crooked and overgrown with grass and weeds. The parks, having been soldier camps, were covered with brush, weeds, and even débris of wrecked buildings, the grassy slopes beaten bare by the tramp of thousands of feet. The population and business projects alike had shrunk, and the general aspect of squalor and neglect was heightened in many localities by the presence of shanties, cabins, and lean-tos thrown together with nondescript odds and ends of lumber, tin, and what-not to make shelter for the Negro element. These were pitched anywhere about the city where a darky family of squatters were unmolested long enough to get a shack put up and install themselves. Frequently, for many years, their little hovels abutted some of the stateliest mansions. General Grant selected the best man available for the rehabilitation he had in mind--Alexander R. Shepherd, of the District of Columbia, and made him Chairman of Public Works. Together they planned extensive permanent improvements, which were put into execution as speedily as money was forthcoming. Regardless of expense, the entire city was placed upon an even and regular grade. High knolls and embankments were cut down, low places filled, many houses, in consequence, finding themselves far above or below the new street level. Public grounds and parks were planted with trees and shrubbery; pavements were repaired and laid; ninety of the three hundred miles of streets were straightened and graded, and a great improvement was made by reducing the width of streets to give to each house a bit of lawn or front yard. Shade trees were set out. Tiber Creek, so long an eyesore, running through part of the city, a breeding place for mosquitoes and an attraction for the pigs and cattle that were allowed to roam about, was diverted from its original course and turned into a sewer. For all of this work, Congress appropriated five million dollars, while eight million came from the taxpayers. [Illustration: _Photos. by Brady_ MRS. ULYSSES S. GRANT]