30 haunted destinations cataloged across District of Columbia, spanning 1 county. The collection features museum, haunted house, and cemetery — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.
Washington, DC
St. Elizabeths Hospital opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally operated psychiatric facility in the United States. Designed on the Kirkbride Plan, the 948-foot Center Building was constructed between 1852 and 1895, and the campus was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990.
Washington, DC
The United States Capitol was completed in its original form in 1800 and has been the seat of Congress ever since, surviving British torching in 1814 and dramatic expansion under Thomas U. Walter in the 1850s–1860s. During the Civil War, the building served as a barracks and hospital, with more than 1,500 cots placed in Statuary Hall and other spaces. The current cast-iron dome was completed in 1866 during the war.
Washington, DC
The Adams Memorial is a bronze allegorical funerary sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, unveiled in 1891 in Section E of Rock Creek Cemetery. It was commissioned by historian Henry Adams as the grave marker for his wife, Marian 'Clover' Hooper Adams, who died by suicide on December 6, 1885 by ingesting potassium cyanide, a photography chemical. Saint-Gaudens titled the work 'The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding'; Mark Twain nicknamed it 'Grief.' The hexagonal plaza setting was designed by architect Stanford White. The memorial is on the National Register of Historic Places (March 16, 1972).
Washington, DC
Originally built in 1833 as the First Baptist Church of Washington, the building was converted to a theater by John T. Ford in 1861, destroyed by fire in 1862, and rebuilt as Ford's Theatre in 1863. On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln in the State Box. The federal government seized the building shortly afterward and used it for War Department offices and storage. On June 9, 1893 a portion of the interior floors collapsed, killing 22 federal clerks. The building was restored as a working theater in 1968 and is operated jointly today by the National Park Service and the Ford's Theatre Society.
Washington, DC
Fort Lesley J. McNair occupies Buzzard Point at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers in Washington, DC, and has been an Army installation since 1791. The fort's Grant Hall, also known as Building 20, served as the courtroom for the May-June 1865 military tribunal of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Four convicted conspirators, including Mary Surratt, were hanged in the courtyard on July 7, 1865. Grant Hall was restored and rededicated in 2012.
Washington, DC
The 1843 Greek Revival row house in present-day Chinatown was purchased by John Surratt in 1853. After his death in 1862, his widow Mary Surratt operated it as a boarding house from September 1864 through April 1865. John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and other conspirators met there to plot Lincoln's kidnapping and eventual assassination. Mary Surratt was tried by military tribunal, convicted, and hanged on July 7, 1865 — the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. The building today houses the Wok and Roll restaurant and karaoke bar.
Washington, DC
Built in 1818-1819 by Richard Cutts for his wife Anna Payne Cutts (Dolley Madison's sister), the Federal-style townhouse on Lafayette Square was acquired by former President James Madison in 1828. After Madison's death in 1836, Dolley Madison lived there until her own death on July 12, 1849. The house was later home to the Cosmos Club and is now part of a federal courts complex housing chambers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Washington, DC
Designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and completed in 1818, Decatur House is one of the oldest surviving homes in Washington and one of three remaining Latrobe-designed houses in the United States. Commodore Stephen Decatur Jr. occupied it for just 14 months before he was mortally wounded in an 1820 duel with Commodore James Barron and died in the house. The property later passed through several political households and operated quarters for enslaved people, including Charlotte Dupuy, who sued Henry Clay for her freedom in 1829. It is now a historic site of the White House Historical Association.
Washington, DC
Glenwood Cemetery is a ninety-acre rural-style cemetery in northeast Washington, DC, chartered by Congress in 1852 and dedicated on August 2, 1854. Established on the former Clover Hill estate, it was the first for-profit cemetery in the District. Notable burials include Emanuel Leutze, Clark Mills, Constantino Brumidi, and (by long-standing cemetery tradition) Lincoln-conspirator George Atzerodt.
Washington, DC
The Hay-Adams opened in 1928 on the site formerly occupied by the adjoining Henry Hobson Richardson-designed houses of John Hay (Lincoln's private secretary and later Secretary of State) and Henry Adams (historian and great-grandson of John Adams). Developer Harry Wardman demolished the two homes in 1927 and built the Italian Renaissance hotel as 'The Hay-Adams House' in their place. The hotel has hosted presidents, dignitaries, and the literary world ever since and remains one of the most prominent luxury hotels in Washington.
Washington, DC
The National Theatre opened at 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue NW on December 7, 1835, and has operated continuously on the same site ever since — making it the second-oldest performing-arts venue in the United States and the only DC theater to have hosted every sitting U.S. president. Fires damaged or destroyed the building multiple times, and the current structure dates to a 1923 rebuilding. The National presents touring Broadway productions, dance, and music.
Washington, DC
The National Theatre was founded on December 7, 1835 by William Wilson Corcoran and other prominent Washingtonians at 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The current building, the sixth on the site, was constructed in 1923. The theater is the second-oldest continuously operating performing-arts venue in the United States and has hosted every U.S. President since Andrew Jackson.
Washington, DC
The Octagon House at 1799 New York Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., was completed in 1801 for Virginia planter John Tayloe III to a design by William Thornton, the first architect of the United States Capitol. The house served as the temporary Executive Mansion for President James Madison following the August 1814 British burning of the White House. Madison signed the Treaty of Ghent there in February 1815.
Washington, DC
Built in 1765 by Pennsylvania cabinetmaker Christopher Layman and his wife Rachel, the Old Stone House is the oldest building in Washington still standing on its original foundation. It survived in part because of a long-running misconception that George Washington had lodged there. The National Park Service acquired the building in 1953 and restored it as part of Rock Creek Park; it has been continuously preserved as a museum since 1960.
Washington, DC
The Omni Shoreham Hotel opened October 30, 1930 at 2500 Calvert Street NW in the Woodley Park neighborhood, on the edge of Rock Creek Park. Designed by architect Joseph H. Abel and developed by Harry M. Bralove, it has hosted inaugural balls for every 20th-century U.S. President. The current hotel replaced an earlier 1887 Shoreham Hotel (built by Vice President Levi P. Morton at 15th and H Streets NW) that was demolished in 1929.
Washington, DC
The Octagon is the 1801 Federal-era mansion at 1799 New York Avenue NW, designed by William Thornton for Colonel John Tayloe III. The house served as the temporary executive residence for President James Madison after British forces burned the White House in August 1814. The American Institute of Architects acquired the property in 1902, and the Architects Foundation operates it today as a public museum.
Washington, DC
The Walsh-McLean House at 2020 Massachusetts Avenue NW was built 1901-1903 for Irish-born mining magnate Thomas F. Walsh, who had struck gold and silver at the Camp Bird Mine in Colorado. The 60-room mansion was the most expensive private residence in Washington at completion (cost approximately $835,000). After Evalyn Walsh McLean's death in 1947, the family sold the mansion in 1952 to the Government of Indonesia for $335,000; it has served as the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia since.
Washington, DC
The official residence and workplace of the President of the United States since 1800, designed by James Hoban and rebuilt after British forces burned the building in 1814. The White House Historical Association maintains a long-standing public collection of presidential ghost stories alongside its architectural and political history.
Washington, DC
The Willard's hospitality operation traces to 1847, when Henry Willard took over a row of buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue that had been operating as a hotel since 1816. The current Beaux-Arts building, designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh (architect of New York's Plaza), opened in 1901. The Willard has hosted nearly every U.S. president since Pierce and is widely associated with Civil War-era diplomacy and Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 drafting of the 'I Have a Dream' speech.
Washington, DC
Designed by Waddy Wood in 1915, the Georgian Revival town house in the Sheridan-Kalorama Historic District was purchased by Woodrow Wilson in December 1920 as a retirement gift to his second wife, Edith. After leaving the presidency in March 1921, Wilson — already paralyzed from a severe 1919 stroke — lived in the house until his death there on February 3, 1924. Edith Wilson lived in the house until her own death in 1961 and bequeathed it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It is the only presidential residence-museum in Washington, D.C.
Washington, DC
Built in 1828 on the east side of Lafayette Square, the Benjamin Ogle Tayloe House is best known as the place where Philip Barton Key II was carried to die on February 27, 1859, after Congressman Daniel Sickles shot him in the square. The house later served as a residence and club building and is now part of the federal courts complex on Madison Place.
Washington, DC
Healy Hall is Georgetown University's flagship building, a High Victorian Gothic structure begun in 1877 and largely completed by 1879. Named for university president Patrick Francis Healy, it anchors the hilltop campus and is a National Historic Landmark.
Washington, DC
The Heurich House, often called the Brewmaster's Castle, is an 1892-1894 Dupont Circle mansion built for German immigrant brewer Christian Heurich. Heurich lived there for decades and died in an upstairs bedroom in 1945. The house retains its original Gilded Age interiors and operates today as a museum.
Washington, DC
Historic Congressional Cemetery is a thirty-five-acre burial ground on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, established in 1807. It holds more than 65,000 interments, including members of Congress, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and composer John Philip Sousa. The cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places and is maintained by the Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery.
Washington, DC
Lafayette Square is a seven-acre public park directly north of the White House in Washington, DC. It was the site of the February 1859 daylight shooting of Philip Barton Key II by Congressman Daniel Sickles, one of the most notorious killings in nineteenth-century Washington. The square is bordered by historic houses including the Decatur House, home of naval officer Stephen Decatur, who died after an 1820 duel.
Washington, DC
Marine Barracks Washington, established in 1801, is the oldest active post in the United States Marine Corps. The Commandant's House on its grounds, completed in 1806, is the oldest continuously occupied building in the Corps and has served as the official residence of every Commandant since. It is on Capitol Hill at 8th and I Streets SE.
Washington, DC
The Pension Building was constructed between 1882 and 1887 to house the U.S. Pension Bureau, which processed pensions for Civil War veterans, widows, and orphans. Designed by Army quartermaster general Montgomery C. Meigs, the brick Renaissance Revival structure is best known for its Great Hall and eight monumental Corinthian columns, among the largest interior columns in the world. The building hosted numerous inaugural balls and, since 1980, has operated as the National Building Museum.
Washington, DC
St. John's Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square was built in 1816 to a design by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the architect of the U.S. Capitol. Sitting one block from the White House, it is known as the Church of the Presidents because every sitting president since James Madison has attended at least once. A pew is reserved for presidential use, and a roughly 1,000-pound bell cast in 1822 by Joseph Warren Revere, son of Paul Revere, hangs in its steeple.
Washington, DC
Tingey House, also called Quarters A, is the oldest building at the Washington Navy Yard, built in 1804 to a design by William Lovering. It was the residence of the yard's first commandant, Commodore Thomas Tingey, who superintended the Navy Yard for 28 years. For generations it served as the commandant's quarters, and it is today the official residence of the Chief of Naval Operations. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Washington, DC
Oak Hill Cemetery was founded in 1848 by banker and art collector William Wilson Corcoran and incorporated by Congress in 1849. Laid out on a terraced Georgetown hillside above Rock Creek, it follows the garden-cemetery model. James Renwick, architect of the Smithsonian Castle, designed its 1849 Gothic Revival chapel. In February 1862, President Lincoln's 11-year-old son William Wallace Lincoln died of typhoid fever and was temporarily interred in the Carroll family crypt here.