Washington, DC, gleams with stately columns and neoclassical temples, a pulsing hub of political power and prowess. But for decades it was among the most severe excuses to get a capital town the world got ever seen. Before America became a world power in the twentieth century, Washington City was an eyesore at best and a disgrace at worst. Unfilled swamps, filthy canals, and rutted equine trails littered its landscape. Political bosses employed hooligans and thugs to conduct the nation’s affairs. Legendary about Empire of Mud: THE TRICK History of Washington, DC madams amused customers from all stations of society and politicians of each party. The police served and safeguarded using bribes and safety money. Beneath pestilential air flow, the city’s muddy roads led to a stumpy, half-finished obelisk to Washington right here, a domeless Capitol Building there. Coating the streets stood boarding homes, tanneries, and slums. Deadly horse races gouged dusty streets, and opposing factions of volunteer firefighters battled one another like violent gangs rather than life-saving heroes. The city’s turbulent history place a precedent for the dishonesty, corruption, and mismanagement which have led decades to look suspiciously on the many sin-both real and imagined-of Washington politicians. Empire of Dirt unearths and untangles the roots of our capital’s tale and explores how the city was tainted from your outset, nearly stifled from becoming the very pleased citadel from the republic that George Washington and Pierre L’Enfant envisioned more than two centuries ago.