BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. TRCWCR_150613_002.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.1 Chief Justice John Marshall A bronze likeness of Chief Justice John Marshall, visible on your way to the next Heritage Trail sign, keeps watch over John Marshall Park to your right. Marshall is remembered for molding the U.S. Supreme Court into today's authoritative body. Appointed by President John Adams, Marshall served a record 34 years until his death in 1835. He participated in more than 1,000 decisions, including the 1803 Marbury v. Madison, which defined the court's authority to declare "unconstitutional" laws passed by Congress. John Marshall Park replaced John Marshall Place (originally 4½ Street), a few blocks of small shops and law offices that once linked Washington's first City Hall/Courthouse with Pennsylvania Avenue. The monumental buildings and sweeping views here along Pennsylvania Avenue are the result of city planner Peter C. (a.k.a. Pierre) L'Enfant's grand 1791 vision for the Nation's Capital. But in the early 1800s, when Congress met only a few months annually, this stretch of Washington's main street was known as "Hash Row," lined with boarding houses and hotels serving members of Congress and individuals doing business with the Federal Government. Guests at Elizabeth Peyton's boarding house on this spot included Chief Justice Marshall and Senator Henry Clay. A number of photographers recorded city business and ceremonial life here as well. C.M. Bell's studio of the late 1800s rivaled Mathew Brady's for portraits of Washington notables and distinguished visitors. Bell became known especially for photographing hundreds of American Indians in town for treaty negotiations.
2. TRCWCR_150613_011.JPG: The bunting-draped hotel at left replaced a "Hash Row" boarding house on the corner of Pennsylvania Ave. and 4 ½ St., approximately on this spot. Sen. Henry Clay, upper right, once boarded there. The United States Hotel, once one block east of here, advertised reasonable rates around 1880.
3. TRCWCR_150613_014.JPG: Lawyer John Barthel, below, lived and worked at John Marshall Place, left, (now John Marshall Park) around 1906.
4. TRCWCR_150613_020.JPG: Photographer C.M. Bell's portrait of Fire Lightning, right, and his studio's logo, above.
5. TRCWCR_150613_026.JPG: This creative concept for paving Pennsylvania Ave. captures buildings that existed in 1853, including the National Hotel at left, which once occupied the corner of Sixth St. where the Newseum is today. The Capitol's original, modest dome is seen at center.
6. TRCWCR_150613_028.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglas, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
7. TRCWCR_150613_030.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
8. TRCWCR_150613_035.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
9. TRCWCR_150613_038.JPG: These buildings once stood on Indiana Ave., at the corner of John Marshall Pl., where today's Moultrie Courthouse stands.
10. TRCWCR_150613_041.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.4 Sitting in Judgment This imposing, Greek Revival style structure was designed by George Hadfield as Washington's first City Hall/Courthouse. Throughout its history, the building has housed the local and federal courts for DC, presided over by judges appointed by the U.S. president with the consent of the U.S. Senate. In 1874 Congress took over city operations, ending home rule. DC lost the right to elect a mayor and city council. The courts and municipal offices remained in the mayor-less City Hall. For nearly a century, until limited home rule was restored, three commissioners appointed by the U.S. president ran the city. As part of steps to return home rule to the city in 1970, Congress reorganized DC's judicial system. It removed local cases from federal jurisdiction and created the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to hear everything from traffic violations to criminal matters. The Superior Court's Family Division moved into the Old City Hall/Courthouse. An expanded DC Court of Appeals became the District's court of last resort. In 1999 the worn-out courthouse closed to await rehabilitation. Ten years later, after extensive renovation, the building re-opened as the DC Court of Appeals. Some of the most noteworthy trials in our city's history have taken place here. In 1867 John Surratt faced trial for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to kill President Lincoln. Surratt was acquitted after testifying that, when the assassination occurred, he was in New York on a Confederate spying mission. Charles Guiteau fared worse. In 1882, despite evidence of insanity, Guiteau was convicted of mortally wounding President James Garfield. He received the death penalty.
11. TRCWCR_150613_046.JPG: In the foreground of this post-Civil War photo of Old City Hall is a platform for the boarding a horse-drawn carriage. The street was still unpaved.
12. TRCWCR_150613_049.JPG: Acquitted Lincoln conspirator John Surratt, photographed in the uniform of the Papal guard.
13. TRCWCR_150613_054.JPG: The scene at the Baltimore and Potomac train station on the Mall where Charles Guiteau morally wounded President James Garfield, 1881.
14. TRCWCR_150613_057.JPG: Abolitionist and U.S. Marshall Frederick Douglass receives visitors in his City Hall office. He also served here as the appointed DC recorder of deeds.
15. TRCWCR_150613_065.JPG: Lott Flannery's Lincoln statue, originally atop a 35-foot pedestal, was paid for by DC residents and dedicated in 1868 as the nation's first public Lincoln memorial.
16. TRCWCR_150613_070.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
17. TRCWCR_150613_074.JPG: Trinity Episcopal Church, now demolished, shares the skyline with the unfinished Capitol during the Civil War. It was one of many churches in this neighborhood at the time. (The Historical Society of Washington, D.C.)
18. TRCWCR_150613_077.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.3 Senator Daniel Webster "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable," -- Senator Daniel Webster, January 1830. Senator Daniel Webster, eloquent advocate for the preservation of the Union and a political giant in pre-Civil War America, lived and worked here. His home and office buildings, now demolished, were similar to the two surviving pre-Civil War buildings alongside this sign. Wester's buildings began where the ally is today, stretching to the west. In the mid-19th century this was a fashionable neighborhood of fine homes and magnificent churches within easy walking distance to the Capitol and near Washington's City Hall/Courthouse. Webster's unmatched speaking ability helped bring about the Compromise of 1850. The compromise helped delay the Civil War for about ten years and ended the notorious slave trade in District of Columbia. But at the same time strengthened the fugitive slave law that compelled citizens to help capture and return individuals fleeing slavery. In 1850, at 69 years of age and near the end of his life, Webster made his last great speech on the floor of the Senate in defense of the Union. He filed the galleries with spectators, many of whom were Washingtonians who regularly attended the entertaining and educational congressional debates. Webster likely developed his arguments here in his office. Among the dignitaries who lived nearby were Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, John C. Calhoun, vice president under President John Quincy Adams; and Salmon P. Chase, President Lincoln's secretary of the Treasury. President Lincoln attended the wedding of Kate Chase in the family home at Sixth and D Streets, now demolished. Lincoln attended the wedding of Chase's daughter Kate at the family home at Sixth and E Streets, now demolished. In Webster's day, the First Unitarian Church of Washington stood at the corner of Sixth and D. The Unitarians were among the city's loudest anti-slavery voices. When they tolled the church bell endlessly the day abolitionist John Brown was executed in 1859, the city ordered the bell silenced for good. The former Recorder of Deeds building now occupies the church site.
19. TRCWCR_150613_082.JPG: Senator Daniel Webster, above, speaks in the U.S. Senate. He lived and worked in the buildings pictured at left (Photo reproduced below) which once stood in this block.
20. TRCWCR_150613_086.JPG: Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase lived in this fashionable home, now demolished, at Sixth and E Streets, below. His daughter Kate married Senator William Sprague in a ceremony at the Chase mansion attended by President Lincoln, right.
21. TRCWCR_150613_091.JPG: The abolitionist First (later All Souls) Unitarian Church, built in 1822, served as a Civil War hospital.
22. TRCWCR_150613_097.JPG: War Department, Washington, D.C. , April 20, 1865 $100,000! THE MURDERER of our late beloved President ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS STILL AT LARGE . . .
23. TRCWCR_150613_107.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.9 Mary Surratt's Boarding House "The nest in which the egg was hatched." -- President Andrew Johnson, April 1865. The building at 604 H Street is intimately connected to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater, just five blocks from here. During the Civil War, this modest brick house was occupied by Mary Surratt, a Maryland-born widow, who took in boarders. Like many in this Southern history, she was quietly sympathetic to the Confederacy, though living in the capital of the Union. She had a son in the Confederate Army. Another son, John, had become friends with the famous actor, John Wilkes Booth. Booth, it turned out, had been plotting to capture President Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, the plot changed to murder. Booth, one of a famous theatrical family, was the matinee idol of his day. His dashing appearance caused women to swoon, and both men and women were taken with the handsome young man. He attracted co-conspirators, several of whom, including John Surratt, lived in this house. Booth himself visited several times. Although there was never a formal meeting here, President Andrew Johnson reflected a popular belief in calling it "the nest in which the egg was hatched." Three days after the assassination, police came to see Mrs. Surratt. By unlucky chance, Louis Powell, already identified as part of the plot, showed up at the time. The coincidence was enough for the authorities to implicate Mrs. Surratt. She was arrested, tried and hanged with three others at Fort McNair in Southwest Washington on July 7, 1865. Booth escaped to a Virginia tobacco shed, where pursuers found him and shot him to death. John Surratt escaped to Canada and went free. More than a century later, Mary Surratt's guilt continues to be a subject of debate.
24. TRCWCR_150613_113.JPG: A number of the Lincoln conspirators pictured here frequented the Surratt house. Though this image puts Surratt in the center, her guilt is still a subject of debate.
25. TRCWCR_150613_125.JPG: Mary Surratt's boarding house stands to the left in this 1910 photograph; Surratt, right, was hanged as a Lincoln conspirator.
26. TRCWCR_150615_01.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.10 Chinatown dragons to bring rain, prosperity and friendship More than 280 dragons, crowned by 700 glazed tiles, look down from the Chinatown Friendship Archway before you. Symbols of the spirits that bring rain and prosperity in China, these painted and carved dragons are fitted together like a giant jigsaw puzzle in the ancient Chinese building tradition of "gong" balancing. Seven roofs of weighing nine tons each are cantilevered, with no nails almost 50 feet above the street. This is the largest single-span Chinese archway in the world, designed by Chinese-born Washington architect Alfred Liu and erected in 1986. A joint project of the governments of Washington, D.C., and and its sister city, Beijing, it marks the entrance to Washington's Chinatown in a statement of international friendship. Chinese and American craftsmen worked side by side to construct it. The Chinese community in Washington dates back to the 1880s, when the first immigrants settled along Pennsylvania Avenue between Third and Sixth Streets. Forced out by construction of the Federal Triangle in the 1930s, the community relocated here with the help of the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association into homes once occupied by an earlier German and Jewish immigrant population. Some of the city's oldest pre-Civil War buildings, with flat roofs and sloped roofs, can still be seen beneath the neighborhood's colorful Chinese facades. While many Chinese have left the area for newer homes in the city and suburbs, the community is dedicated to preserving a slice of Chinese culture downtown. Calvary Baptist Church on Eighth and H, the first to create a Chinese Sunday School here, is still involved with the community, and St. Mary's Catholic Church near Fifth and H, has regular Masses in Cantonese. Chinese symbols and signs preserve the spirit of this special place, and residents of the metropolitan area flock to the annual Chinese New Year's dragon parade.
27. TRCWCR_150615_07.JPG: Calvary Baptist Church nearby at Eighth and H Streets, as photographed by Matthew Brady just after the Civil War, started the first Chinese Sunday School. Below right, its alter is decorated for a national celebration.
28. TRCWCR_150615_12.JPG: Celebrating Chinese New Year
29. TRCWCR_150615_15.JPG: Behind the Chinese decorations in this neighborhood can be found the 19th-century building styles of an earlier residential community.
30. TRCWCR_150615_20.JPG: Because of restrictive U.S. immigration laws, Washington's original Chinese community was all male. The men formed strong organizations such as the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association, for mutual aid and companionship. The association was housed for many years in this building at 518 Eighth Street, now a Chinese restaurant.
31. TRCWCR_150615_24.JPG: The commercial buildings pictured are still standing across the street from marker, amidst new development north of the Verizon Center.
32. TRCWCR_150618_01.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
33. TRCWCR_150618_05.JPG: The line at the Municipal Building to buy new automobile license plates, 1943.
34. TRCWCR_150618_10.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.5 Building Out the Square The great depression (1929-1941) meant economic catastrophe for millions of Americans, but in Washington it meant a building boom as the Federal Government staffed up to the end the economic crisis. In 1931 alone Congress approved new government buildings and schools, street paving, bridges, and sewers Thousands found badly needed work. By this time, the Old City Hall/Courthouse had lost most of its DC government functions. The city's commissioners, police and fire chiefs, and engineers had moved to the 1908 District Building (now the John A. Wilson Building) on Pennsylvania Avenue. But as the city needed more offices, planners looked again at Judiciary Square. By 1943, the Judiciary Square courthouses and offices you can see from here were complete. Municipal architect Nathan C. Wyeth designed the 1941 Art Deco style Municipal Center across Indiana Avenue for the police and fire departments' headquarters and other agencies. For Judiciary Square, Wyeth designed three courthouses to harmonize with the Old City Hall; the Juvenile Court at 409 E. Street, and the Police and Municipal Courts framing today's National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. One Judiciary Square, across Fourth Street, became DC's city hall between 1992 and 2001, while the District Building on Pennsylvania Avenue underwent renovation. In 2007, as part of Mayor Adrian Fenty's "Greening the District" program, the building received a green roof. The Francis Perkins U.S. Department of Labor building, ahead of you along D Street, honors President Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of labor, the first woman Cabinet member and the principal architect of the Social Security Acct and other worker protections.
35. TRCWCR_150618_14.JPG: The Municipal Court Building (now Superior Court-B), under construction on Fourth and E Sts., 1939
36. TRCWCR_150618_19.JPG: These rowhouses once occupied the site of One Judiciary Square
37. TRCWCR_150618_22.JPG: DC municipal architect Nathan Wyeth, center, explains the new Municipal Center's switchboard, 1941.
38. TRCWCR_150618_25.JPG: At right, commissioners inspect the new Cosmetology Operators Examination Room.
39. TRCWCR_150618_27.JPG: Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, with Sen. Hugo Black, left, and Rep. William P. Connery, Jr. testified to Congress in favor of abolishing child labor. June 1937.
40. TRCWCR_150618_33.JPG: President Jimmy Carter renames the Department of Labor building to honor Frances Perkins, 1980.
41. TRCWCR_150618_36.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.6 A Courthouse Reborn The old City Hall/Courthouse endured hard use, was abandoned, and then was transformed. In 2009 it re-opened as the DC Court of Appeals, redesigned by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, which modernized the interior while preserving its historic features. A graceful glass atrium defined the new main entrance, and the limestone walls gleamed. A grand new ceremonial courtroom was constructed beneath the south lawn. The Court of Appeals now stands among other dignified courthouses. But in 1822, when the mayor and council moved into the new City Hall, their neighbors were the hastily built Washington County poorhouse, the Washington Jail, and eventually the Washington Infirmary, providing medical care to the poor. The jail was especially bleak, confirming criminals and debtors together with the insane. In addition the cells held fugitives from slavery, enslaved people, and free African Americans who had broken one of the Black Codes that governed their lives until DC emancipation in 1862. For example, African Americans could not be on the street past curfew without a permit. The city required all free African Americans to register and have a white sponsor. By the 1870s the poorhouse and infirmary were long gone. The reviled Washington Jail was finally razed in 1878 after the new jail was built near the Anacostia River. In their wake, the city commissioners transformed the landscape of the tears into a beautiful city park, with curving paths, a watchman's lodge, and a marble fountain. In 1991 the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial opened where the park had been.
42. TRCWCR_150618_44.JPG: The 1908 photo at left shows the peeling City Hall/Courthouse with a north portico, which soon fell to a renovation. Today's glass pavilion is a modern interpretation of the original portico.
43. TRCWCR_150618_47.JPG: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper published this expose of the Washington Jail in 1861, below. The same year the Washington Infirmary burned as illustrated in Harper's Weekly.
44. TRCWCR_150618_57.JPG: Years before the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial was built just north of this sign, this quiet city park occupied its site.
45. TRCWCR_150618_59.JPG: Superior Court Building A, across E Street towards Fifty Street, opened as DC Police Court in 1938. City officials tours its new, modern holding cells, above.
46. TRCWCR_150618_66.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
47. TRCWCR_150618_69.JPG: The new, underground ceremonial courtroom for the DC Court of Appeals
48. TRCWCR_150619_01.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.2 Ending Slavery in Washington To your right at the end of Indiana Avenue is Washington's first City Hall/Courthouse. Across Sixth Street is the H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse, a successor to the original courthouse. The Old City Hall/Courthouse opened in 1822, with offices for the mayor, city administrators, and federal courts. Today it is the city's third-oldest public building, after the White House and the Capitol. The City Hall/Courthouse witnessed key events in abolition history. In 1848 abolitionist Daniel Drayton faced trial here for larceny and illegally transporting slaves. Months earlier, Drayton had been captured along with 77 African Americans attempting to escape slavery aboard his schooner, Pearl. Drayton was found guilty and served jail time, but was pardoned in 1852. The National Park Service later cited this case when it added the City Hall/Courthouse to its National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. On April 16, 1862, during the Civil War, President Lincoln signed the DC Emancipation Act, freeing DC's enslaved people. The law established an experiment called "compensated emancipation," reimbursing slave owners for their human property. Owners came to the City Hall/Courthouse, where three commissioners had the ugly task of putting a monetary value on human life (up to $300 per person). Later President Lincoln did not offer compensation when his Emancipation Proclamation declared the enslaved people of the rebellious states to be free in January 1863.
49. TRCWCR_150619_05.JPG: Seen here in 1835, the slave house of J.W. Neal & Co at Seventh St. south of the National Mall was a center of the District slave trade.
50. TRCWCR_150619_08.JPG: Daniel Drayton, left, captain of the ill-fated Pearl. The Edmonson sisters (in plaid shawls) attempted to escape on the Pearl, were sold back into slavery, then rescued by family members. In this 1850 photo, above, they appeared at an abolition meeting with a young Frederick Douglass.
51. TRCWCR_150619_11.JPG: With this document, DC resident Margaret Barber requested reimbursement after freeing these African Americans from slavery, 1862.
52. TRCWCR_150619_19.JPG: H. Carl Moultrie I (1915-1986), above, first African American chief judge of the DC Superior Court. At left, workmen finish the Moultrie Courthouse skylight, 1976.
53. TRCWCR_150619_20.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglas, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
54. TRCWCR_150619_27.JPG: This drawing for architect George Hadfield's Greek Revival style City Hall/Courthouse, to your left along Indiana Avenue,includes a dome that was never built. - Library of Congress.
55. TRCWCR_150827_01.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail w.7 Freedom Plaza "I have a dream." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. August 1963 The block-long plaza at 13th and Pennsylvania Avenue just ahead to your left honors civil rights leader Martin Luther King with the name Freedom Plaza. King completed his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in the Willard Hotel adjacent to the plaza, before delivering it to a crowd of 200,000 at the Lincoln Memorial. Freedom Plaza also recalls Washington's first city planner, Major Pierre L'Enfant, with a partial image of his 1791 plan for the city inscribed on its surface. L'Enfant envisioned Pennsylvania Avenue as a great ceremonial street, the symbolic link between the Capitol (which he called the Congress's House) and the White House (which he called the President's House). Freedom Plaza's Open space reinforces this symbolic connection, despite the fact that the Treasury Building blocks the view of the White House, the site a result of a questionable decision in 1836 by President Andrew Jackson. Directly across Freedom Plaza is the John A. Wilson Building, home of the government of the District of Columbia. The building was constructed in 1904 when the city was governed by three presidentially appointed commissioners. In 1974, the city regained the elected mayor and city council it had had before the Civil War, the result of a vigorous local campaign for "home rule." The building is named for the late council chair, John A. Wilson, a champion of equal rights for D.C. citizens. The National Theater whose marquee is visible straight ahead, has presented live theater on this spot since 1835. Rebuilt to meet the tastes of each generation, the historic "Theater of the Presidents" has entertained every First Family since its doors first opened. President Lincoln and his family attended this theater many times, and on the evening of the President's assassination at Ford's Theater, his son, Tad, was attending a performance here.
56. TRCWCR_150827_09.JPG: Pierre L'Enfant's grand plan for the new federal city. A partial replica is embedded in the paving of Freedom Plaza.
57. TRCWCR_150827_14.JPG: The District of Columbia Government is housed in the Beaux-Arts building across the avenue. Seen here in an early 20th-century photo, the structure was for years known as the District Building until it was renamed the John A. Wilson Building in honor of the city's late council chairman, above.
58. TRCWCR_150827_19.JPG: The District of Columbia Government is housed in the Beaux-Arts building across the avenue. Seen here in an early 20th-century photo, the structure was for years known as the District Building until it was renamed the John A. Wilson Building in honor of the city's late council chairman, above.
59. TRCWCR_150827_22.JPG: The Washington Post, seen here about 1917, once stood in the 1300 block of E Street.
60. TRCWCR_150827_25.JPG: The National Theatre, one-half block behind you, looked like this during the Civil War. Lincoln's son Tad was attending a play here when the president was shot at Ford's Theatre, just three blocks away.
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