Tiber Creek

In The Hesperus Prophecy, while Director Bowen drives along Constitution Avenue towards the Navy and Munitions Buildings, he tells James the history of the Tiber Creek hidden beneath the road.

Tiber Creek was originally a tributary of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Once a free-flowing creek, today it’s part of the District’s sewer system, flowing under the city through tunnels.

Originally named Goose Creek, Francis Pope settled along the creek in the 1600s and renamed it Tiber Creek. Given his papal surname, Pope cheekily called his lands Rome and named the creek after the Italian city's river.

When Washington, D.C. was planned, the original intent was to widen Tiber Creek and turn it into a canal running through the District. However, Washington had no separate drainage system and by the 1840s, Tiber Creek was nothing more than an open sewer. In 1871, D.C. Public Works enclosed Tiber Creek, burying the sewer under Constitution Avenue and the nearby Federal buildings.

Director Bowen describes Tiber Creek’s transformation into a sewer as “A fitting metaphor for this city. A lot of history has been covered up here, and not all of it smells like springtime flowers.”

In The Hesperus Prophecy, the Tiber Creek serves an additional purpose. A Hesperus prophecy describes the future site of Washington D.C. as where the Greek and Roman rivers meet, a reference to the spot where the Tiber Creek joins the Potomac River. This also happens to be the site of the Jefferson Pier Marker, Clypeate Headquarter’s original entrance.

The bucolic Tiber Creek flowing past the White House

Tiber Creek becomes the Washington Canal, essentially an open sewer

Today, Tiber Creek is enclosed, functioning as an actual sewer