Happy 105th birthday, National Press Club!

This Week in National Press Club History

March 12, 1908: The National Press Club is born at a meeting of 32 enthusiastic newspapermen -- earning in those days, perhaps, $15 or $18 a week -- in a room lent by the Washington Chamber of Commerce in the Brentano Building at 12th and F streets, N.W.

Minutes are taken of that initial meeting, indicating the serious purpose of the organizers, who had an initial hard-earned kitty of $300 to get things started. On March 18, a second meeting is held in the F Street Parlor of the New Willard Hotel to solidify plans for the structure and rules for the Club. The group also discussed looking for a location in “a few upstairs rooms” rather than continuing to rely on the nearby police headquarters and lunchrooms as meeting places.

The venue turned out to be two floors above a jeweler’s shop at 1205 F St., N.W. Buffalo Bill Cody attended the Club’s official housewarming two months later, and the place was packed. But the Club soon outgrew its location and, just a year later, relocated to an ancient building above Affleck’s Drug Store at 15th and F streets.

This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s history through lobby displays, events, panel discussions and an oral history project.

For more information on the Committee’s activities, or to join the Committee, contact Gil Klein at Gilbert.Klein@yahoo. com.

And for much more about the Club’s century-plus history, go to the Club’s website at www.press.org/about/history.