Hidden since WWII: Newspaper sealed in bathroom wall

Good morning, DMV. It’s Tuesday, Nov. 10.

D.C. resident Chris Cannedy shares quite the tale with us today.

It unfolded last Friday, when he was having his bathroom renovated. The 52-year-old had been living in the McLean Gardens apartment building in northwest D.C. for seven years, and the bathroom needed an update, he told me.

As the workers tore down the dry wall, they made a discovery.

One of the contractors came out and said very excitedly, “Hey, look what we found!” Chris told me on a call yesterday.

On a horizontal piece of wood — in the middle of the left exposed vertical section in the above photo — they found a complete edition of D.C.’s Times Herald newspaper.

“The thing that was so freaky about the paper was it was the same day of the week and same day of the month that it was found,” Chris said. “Everyone was just freaking out.”

The workers found it on Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. Chris sent me a closeup photo of the date of the paper.

(While going down various internet rabbit holes, I learned that timeanddate.com can show you what years, past and future, have the same calendar as 2026: “21 years share the calendar of year 2026 in the 200-year time span from 1926 to 2125,” the website says.)

The headline on the left side of the Times Herald front page read, “Vote Result a Miracle….”

“They were talking about their election in 1942, and we just had ours, and it was interesting how that resonated in 2026,” Chris said.

I did a cursory search online about the newspaper and found some info from the Library of Congress: The Times Herald was in publication from 1939 to 1954, when it was merged with the Washington Post and became known as the Washington Post and Times Herald. The Times Herald portion of the name was dropped in 1973. (My search was quick and by no means comprehensive.)

As for McLean Gardens, according to its website, the federal government built it as a dormitory housing complex in the early 1940s for defense workers during World War II. After the war, the government sold the property, which became a rental property and was converted into condominiums in 1981.

I asked Chris what he plans to do with the newspaper.

“Right now it is resting under a heavy book to flatten it out … Once it’s flat, I plan to frame it and hang it on the wall,” he said.

“It really makes me wonder, what else is in the wall that I don’t know about? It makes me want to rip out all the dry wall.”

Here’s his renovated bathroom.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. I’ll be back in your inbox Thursday morning. In the meantime, please share your photos of comfort, joy and community in the DMV here.

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