BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: An East of the River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: An East of the River View: Anacostia 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. TRANA_200507_001.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
2. TRANA_200507_005.JPG: Members of the Anacostia Garden Club at work on the park here, 1994.
3. TRANA_200507_013.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 16 Education Matters Anacostia's Ketcham School (across Good Hope Road) opened in 1908 to serve white elementary school children. For junior and senior high school, whites crossed the river until 1935, when Anacostia Junior-Senior High School opened at 16th and R Streets, four blocks to your left. In 1943 Kramer Junior High opened next door for grades seven through nine. African American children had to cross the river for junior high school until 1950, when Douglass Junior High opened in the old Birney School. Their older siblings continued the commute for another four years until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional (Brown v. Board of Education). Under DC's 1954 desegregation plan, students were allowed to remain in their current school until graduation, or they could switch immediately to their neighborhood school. That first September only 44 of Anacostia High School's approximately 1,200 students were African American. School opened calmly, but in early October white students at Anacostia, Eastern, and McKinley, High Schools staged a strike to protest desegregation. Elsewhere students returned quickly to classes, but in Anacostia police had to step in to end the protest. Washington's German Orphan Home once stood about six blocks up Good Hope Road. Founded in 1879 by the Concordia German Evangelic Lutheran Church in Foggy Bottom, the home moved to "Good Hope Hill Farm" purchased from Captain Samuel and Flora Cabell in 1880. In 1965 it moved to Upper Marlboro Md., before closing in 1978.
4. TRANA_200507_026.JPG: Students protesting desegregation parade in front of Anacostia High singing school songs.
5. TRANA_200507_030.JPG: Police break up the [anti-desegregation] protest.
6. TRANA_200507_036.JPG: Residents of the German Orphan Home pose on its grounds around 1935.
7. TRANA_200507_040.JPG: At work in the Anacostia High School Academy for Public Service computer Lab, 1990.
8. TRANA_200507_043.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 14 Booth's Escape Late On The Night Of April 14, 1865, a guard at the other end of the Navy Yard Bridge allowed a young man on horseback to cross, despite a wartime curfew. Unbeknownst to the guard, the rider, John Wilkes Booth, had just shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. Booth was fleeing to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd in Prince George's County, Maryland, by way of Good Hope Road. As details of the assassination arrived at the Anacostia police substation days later, so did a rumor that Booth might be hiding out in the area. Officers commenced a hunt for the fugitive, but he was long gone. The bridge Booth traveled, the first of many at this site, was built in 1820 to allow residents to reach jobs at the Navy Yard. Before then people used the Eastern Branch Bridge at Pennsylvania Avenue. That structure, which dated to 1797, was blown up in August 1814 as the British marched toward Washington bent on its destruction during the War of 1812. Unfortunately the British succeeded in reaching the capital via Bladensburg Road instead. General William H. Winder, commander of the defenses of Washington and Baltimore, ordered the destruction of the Navy Yard as well, to keep it out of British hands. This intersection was Anacostia's first commercial center. From here businesses spread east on Good Hope Road and south along Nichols Avenue. Among the earliest establishments were Robert Martin's general store and post office, his Farmers' and Drovers' Hotel, David Haines's blacksmith and wheelwright shop, Duvall's Tavern, and George Pyle's grocery. Out Good Hope Road, greenhouses and a brick factory provided local jobs.
9. TRANA_200507_047.JPG: The Navy Yard Bridge, 1862, A Bridge has crossed over the Anacostia River here since 1820 taking men and women to jobs at the Navy Yard/Naval Gun Factory.
10. TRANA_200507_051.JPG: This poster advertised the reward for the capture of John Wilkes Booth and conspirators Mary Surratt and David Herold (misspelled Harold.)
11. TRANA_200507_053.JPG: In Anacostia's early days, W.L. Koontz's feed store occupied the corner of Nichols and Good Hope.
12. TRANA_200507_056.JPG: In 1881 Frederick Douglass shopped at Martin's at the corner of Harrison (now Good Hope) and Monroe (Martin Luther King Jr, Ave.)
13. TRANA_200507_059.JPG: Joe Puglisi in his shoe repair shop at 1214 Good Hope Road during the 1950s.
14. TRANA_200507_065.JPG: Max Simon's shoe shop, pictured here in the 1940s, occupied 1911 Nichols Ave.
15. TRANA_200507_069.JPG: A 1949 view of the 1900 block of Martin Luther King Jr. (then Nichols) Ave. includes a Hechinger hardware and a clothing store catering to sailors.
16. TRANA_200507_076.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
17. TRANA_200507_086.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
18. TRANA_200507_090.JPG: Anacostia Citizens Association President George C. Havenner speaks at the groundbreaking for Anacostia Park, 1923.
19. TRANA_200507_096.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 13 A Neighborhood Oasis Follow Good Hope Road under the highway to your left to reach Anacostia Park, a longtime neighborhood oasis. In 1914, after years of citizen requests, Congress directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to "improve" the Anacostia River by scraping soil from the river bed and depositing it into the "flats," the marshes lining the banks. The improvement would eliminate mosquito-breeding grounds and provide new land for parks. Construction on Anacostia Park started in 1923. Later Anacostia Citizens Association President George C. Havvener marveled: "Where is there another such town with a $4,000,000 park in its front yard, with its homes sitting on hills like box seats in an amphitheater!" The dramas that played out on that stage were not always pretty. In the hot summer of 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, some 15,000 ragged World War I veterans and their families, known as the Bonus Army, set up camp in the park. They were part of a group of 45,000 that had come to Washington to try to collect -- 13 years ahead of schedule -- a bonus payment due in 1945. When Congress tables their request, President Hoover feared their anger and directed the US Army to clear out the camp. The troops chased people out and burned their shelters. Many were injured, and a child died. Violence erupted again in 1949 when the Department of the Interior desegregated the Anacostia Park swimming pool. Since opening in 1937, the pool had been restricted to white patrons. Some of them reacted violently to the arrival of African American swimmers, so officials closed the pool for the summer. In the mid-1960s, the neighborhood lost a favorite vista when the Anacostia Freeway was constructed along the park's edge.
20. TRANA_200507_123.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
21. TRANA_200507_127.JPG: Fred Curtis (left) and an employee inside the Curtis Brothers' first store, which opened in 1936 and sold used furniture at 2041 Nichols Ave.
22. TRANA_200507_130.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 12 The Big Chair This Anacostia icon once marked the entrance to Curtis Brothers Furniture Co. The business dated to 1926, when young Fred and George Curtis acquired a Model T Ford truck to deliver ice, then progressed to moving furniture. They soon rented a storage facility on Shannon Place then opened a store to sell items abandoned there by customers. Eventually they offered new furniture too. Over time three generations ran the business, which grew beyond the Anacostia retail operation and warehouses to include three suburban stores. In 1958 Curtis Brothers billed itself as Washington's largest furniture display and had Bassett Furniture construct a 4,600-pound mahogany Big Chair as its symbol. It unveiled the finished chair with a ceremony presided over by "Miss World's Largest Chair": DC resident Maureen Reagan, daughter of movie stars Ronald Reagan (later U.S. president) and Jane Wyman. Numerous Big Chair publicity stunts followed. The Big Chair survived the civil disturbances following the 1968 assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Though damage to Anacostia's shopping district was modest, many businesses and residents moved away afterwards. Curtis Brothers Furniture closed in 1975. Four years later the community began marking Dr. King's birthday with a parade along the avenue that passed the neighborhood's longtime centerpiece. Eventually time and weather got the best of the Big Chair, and the Curtises removed it. The loss so upset the neighborhood that the Curtises made a replica in metal. Godfather of Go-Go Chuck Brown, whose career took off in the house parties and clubs of Anacostia, performed at the new Big Chair's dedication in 2006.
23. TRANA_200507_149.JPG: Chuck Brown performed on the big Chair when it was rededicated in 2006.
24. TRANA_200507_152.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 11 Transit and Trade The arrival of modern transportation after the Civil War transformed Anacostia. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opened a branch line along the river here in 1874, bringing industry. Two years later businessman and developer Henry Griswold launched the Anacostia & Potomac River Railroad Co., the first streetcar east of the river. Horse-drawn cars carried passengers back and forth over the bridge from the Navy Yard to about this spot, and inspired Washingtonians with jobs across the river to settle here. Businesses opened near the streetcar stops to serve them. Griswold figured correctly that the streetcar was the key to selling property he owned. He quickly sold more than 200 lots on the hill to your right. Eventually he extended the line to Congress Heights and downtown Washington. In 1900 speedier streetcars replaced the horsecars here, shortening the commute time to downtown and encouraging more residential development. In 1935 the Anacostia line was among the first in DC to be replaced with buses, which were considered cheaper to maintain, more flexible, and more modern. (Streetcar service was completely eliminated in Washington in 1962.) Anita F. Allen remembered when the streetcar tracks were removed. "One of the greatest events of our lives came after the new concrete was down and before traffic was allowed again. For a few days we had a gloriously big roller skating rink that all the neighborhood children enjoyed." Union Temple Baptist Church, founded in Anacostia in 1967, moved to this block in 1990. Under activist pastor Rev. Willie Wilson, the church has fought for community improvements and sponsored the annual Unifest.
25. TRANA_200507_179.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
26. TRANA_200507_182.JPG: Bury's Drug Store at 2200 Nichols Ave., about 1919. The shop and truck are decorated for the Fourth of July.
27. TRANA_200507_190.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
28. TRANA_200507_193.JPG: The Anacostia Museum's Youth Advisory Council, seen with Assistant Director Zora Martin in 1972, designed and produced exhibits and classes.
29. TRANA_200507_196.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 9 A Museum for the Community Across the street is the former Carver Theatre, built in 1948 as the first nonsegregated movie house in Southeast Washington. It closed in 1957 becoming, in turn, a roller rink, a church, and a funeral parlor. Then a decade later, a museum moved in -- one that changed the whole idea of what a museum can be. Smithsonian Institution Secretary S. Dillon Ripley knew that most low� income people did not go to museums, so he decided to bring a museum to them. Several DC neighborhoods vied for the privilege of having a branch of the Smithsonian, but Anacostia won, thanks to negotiating by DC Councilmember Stanley Anderson and citizens organized as the Greater Anacostia People's Corporation. Until the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum opened in 1967, the Smithsonian had never produced a major exhibition on African American history or culture nor had it employed any African American curators. The museum tapped John Kinard, an anti-poverty worker and local activist with no museum experience, to run the new facility. Kinard later described the job as "a leap in the dark;" yet the creative risk paid off. Many east-of-the-river residents now experienced museum-going for the first time. While early installations featured a model of a Mercury space capsule and dinosaur bones, soon, with community input, the local story took center stage. Through exhibits on Anacostia's history, arts, and issues, visitors received the message: your history is important too. At Kinard's insistence, community youth helped design and produce much of the museums programming. After the museum achieved national recognition for its exhibit "The Rat: Man's Invited Affliction" (featuring live rats), Kinard began looking for more space. In 1987 it moved to a new building at Fort Stanton Park and in 2006 became the Anacostia Community Museum.
30. TRANA_200507_202.JPG: Museum Educator Robert Hall guides Savoy Elementary fifth and sixth graders around the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, 1986.
31. TRANA_200507_203.JPG: The empty theater awaits the museum in 1967.
32. TRANA_200507_206.JPG: Almore Dale, a pillar of Anacostia's black community (right), and City Councilmember Stanley Anderson, (left) led the Smithsonian to locate a neighborhood museum here.
33. TRANA_200507_213.JPG: Museum Director John Kinard supervises a summer youth worker helping transform the old movie theater into the museum, 1967.
34. TRANA_200507_219.JPG: Boxer Muhammed Ali at the opening of the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, 1967.
35. TRANA_200507_222.JPG: Discover More... Anacostia Community Museum Catch the W3 or W6 Bus at the corner of Morris Rd. for the 10-minute ride to 1901 Fort PI., See If you look out the windows on the driver's side you'll see Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church and Fort Stanton Park. Fort Stanton was one of 12 Civil War defenses built east of the Anacostia River and part of 68 fortifications that ringed the city.
36. TRANA_200507_231.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
37. TRANA_200507_235.JPG: Dyson's barbershop, photographed in the 1920s, occupied the corner of Howard Rd. across Martin Luther King, Jr., Ave.
38. TRANA_200507_239.JPG: An East-of-the River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 8 Birney School The Handsome Italian Renaissance Building. across the street opened as James G. Birney Elementary School in 1901. Its wood-frame predecessor, the original 1889 Birney School, was the first school built with public funds for African American children in Anacostia and Hillsdale. Even though Congress had created a public school system for the District's black children in 1862, it was slow to develop, especially in rural areas. Education occurred regardless. Before 1889, African American children here attended the Hillsdale School, which was sponsored by the Freedmen's Bureau and built by Barry Farm residents in 1871. And before that, children attended privately run schools, including the Mount Zion School (later the Howard School) on Douglass Road. When a third Birney School opened at 2501 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in 1950, students filled their wagons with supplies and moved them from the old classrooms to the new. This building briefly housed the first junior high for African Americans this side of the river. At the same time, the new Sousa Junior High for white children opened on Ely Place, SE. When black children tried to enroll there, Sousa became the center of Bolling v. Sharpe, a lawsuit that ultimately became part of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools nationwide. Until Anacostia Junior-Senior High School opened at 16th and R Streets, SE, in 1935, white Anacostia teenagers attended schools across the river. African American children continued to cross the river for high school until schools were desegregated in 1954 and Anacostia High School admitted all.
39. TRANA_200507_242.JPG: The stores and houses on the right in this 1951 view of Howard Rd. were razed for Birney School's playground.
40. TRANA_200507_244.JPG: Dr. Charles Qualls operated a pharmacy next door to Birney until the city took the property in 1966 to enlarge the school.
41. TRANA_200507_262.JPG: he Old Birney School is visible at left in this 1920s photo of Barry Farm residents headed to Glen Echo in suburban Maryland.
42. TRANA_200507_265.JPG: In 1972 Nichols Avenue(formerly Birney) Elementary School was saved from demolition by Mildred Butler, Shirley Coleman, Octavia Lee, Lolly Mae Newton, Nancy Choice, LaSandia Folks,and Helen Suber.
43. TRANA_200507_266.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
44. TRANA_200507_270.JPG: Navy F9-C scout fighter plane attached to the dirigible MACON - out of NAS Lakehurst in the 1930s - above what is today's Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling [JBAB] where manned "lighter-than-air" vessels have long been deleted from aviation inventories, and even fixed-wing airplanes have been relocated to huge, modern facilities like Joint Base Andrews in suburban Maryland.
45. TRANA_200507_275.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 1 A Navy Town Long before Metro opened a Green Line station here in 1991, the B&O Railroad's Alexandria Branch line ran a block behind you, along the river. The Washington & Anacostia Street Railway ran along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue a block ahead. The railroads and the area's location on the river near the Washington Navy Yard brought industry here in the early 1900s. Pittsburgh-based Firth-Stirling Steel opened the Washington Steel & Ordnance Co. just down river at Giesboro Point, now part of the military base. The plant made armor-piercing projectiles from 1907 until 1928, selling most of them to the Washington Navy Yard. Washington Steel's 300-acre campus replaced small farms and the Buena Vista resort, once popular among the area's many German immigrant farmers. At its peak during World War I (1914-1918), Washington Steel employed 1,600 men. These workers made a ready market for the housing and goods offered by local businessmen. World War I transformed Anacostia. Just north of the plant, the Navy Department built the riverside Anacostia Naval Air Station. The Army Signal Corps Air Service installed Bolling Field and took over the old Washington Steel property in 1935. When the Navy acquired Bolling Field five years later, Anacostia became a true Navy town. Pauline Munson Chapman grew up in Anacostia in the 1940s and remembered waving to trainloads of sailors, who sometimes tossed candy from the windows. "Poplar Point was all Navy barracks," remembered Rev. Oliver Johnson, who lived nearby in the 1950s. On their way to school, he and his pals collected caps presumably dropped by inebriated sailors returning to their barracks from nearby taverns.
46. TRANA_200507_299.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
47. TRANA_200507_310.JPG: Douglass Hall, built as a commercial and community center by Frederick Douglass's son Charles, occupied the northwest corner of Howard Rd. and Nichols Ave. from the mid 1870s until the 1950s.
48. TRANA_200507_311.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 2 Faith and Action You are standing at the main crossroads of Barry Farm, a post-Civil War (1861-1865) village settled by the formerly enslaved. Some Barry Farm-era churches still serve the neighborhood. Macedonia Baptist Church, about a block to your left at 2625 Stanton Road, was organized in 1866 by Rev. James William Howard. Ten years later a group led by Rev. Henry Scott left Macedonia to form Bethlehem Baptist Church (across Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue). Some early Barry Farm residents trekked the mile to the African Methodist Episcopal Allen Chapel, which since 1850 served the free black families of Good Hope village. Soon they formed what became Campbell AME Church, up the hill from this spot. During the 1950s, Campbell AME hosted groups working to desegregate schools in the District. Young church members Barbara and Adrienne Jennings were plaintiffs in Bolling v. Sharpe, one of the court cases folded into Brown v. Board of Education. In 1954 the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board and outlawed school segregation nationwide. African American Episcopalians attended the Chapel of St. Philip the Evangelist, founded in 1887 as a mission of the nearby white Emmanuel Episcopal Church. St. Philip's 1937 building on Shannon Place was a gift from undertaker Minnie B. Smoot. Former City Council Chair Arrington Dixon recalled how St. Philip's Father Charles Walden gave him his first political awareness: "Father Walden would take us to the regional Episcopal Diocese youth meetings. They had discussion groups on all kinds of thoughtful things that kids should know." Civic leader, lecturer, and poet Solomon Brown of Elvans Road founded Pioneer Sabbath School, where adults heard uplifting talks by such eminent speakers of the late 18005 as Frederick Douglass, Representative John Mercer Langston, and other members of Congress. Brown's school met weekly in Douglass Hall on the corner of Howard Road behind you. The United House of Prayer for All People, on Douglass Hall's former site, arrived in Anacostia in 1942, and on this spot in 1969.
49. TRANA_200507_314.JPG: Bethlehem Baptist Church is visible in this 1903 view of Nichols (Now Martin Luther King jr.) Avenue.
50. TRANA_200507_324.JPG: Minnie B. Smoot, left (photographed with Marea Roper) donated the Shannon Pl. Chapel of St. Philip the Evangelist.
51. TRANA_200507_327.JPG: City Council Member Arrington Dixon testified on infant mortality in 1980.
52. TRANA_200507_330.JPG: Reverend S. Everette Guiles, photographed with his wife Anne, led Campbell AME Church during the school desegregation battle.
53. TRANA_200507_338.JPG: Bolling v. Sharpe plaintiffs Adrienne (left) and Barbara Jennings, photographed in 1948.
54. TRANA_200507_343.JPG: An East of the River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 4 Hillsdale You are standing in the middle of what once was a large estate owned by James Barry. The Washington City merchant, land speculator, and councilman purchased part of the "St. Elizabeths" tract hoping to profit as the city expanded eastward. By the end of the Civil War (1861-1865) some 40,000 refugees from slavery had arrived in Washington. They settled where they could, often in terrible conditions. To provide them with housing and education, the U.S. government established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. In 1867 the Freedmen's Bureau bought 375 acres from Barry's heirs to establish a model community. The Bureau sold one-acre lots here, including building materials, and required buyers to construct a 14 X 24-foot two-room house with a peaked roof. Within two years, more than 500 African American families, both refugees and established Washingtonians, had bought lots. Together they cleared trees and built houses, a church, and a school. After working all day, many families trudged out to Anacostia in the evenings to dig, saw, and hammer by candlelight. Most Barry Farm men worked blue collar Jobs, often at St Elizabeths Hospital or across the river at the Navy Yard or the Washington Gas Light plant. But some made livings as government clerks, teachers or professionals. Prominent among these were Frederick Douglass's sons Charles, Lewis, ,and Frederick Jr., and attorney and justice of the peace John Moss, the first African American judicial officer in DC. Smithsonian Institution employee Solomon Brown may have been the most respected. In 1811 voters black and white alike elected him to represent Anacostia in the DC House of Delegates for the first of three terms. Brown introduced the measure changing Barry Farm's name to Hillsdale.
55. TRANA_200507_346.JPG: James Barry of Barry Farm
56. TRANA_200507_348.JPG: General O. O. Howard headed the Freedmen's Bureau
57. TRANA_200507_351.JPG: On April 26, the Evening Star reported the purchase of 375 acres to be resold to Freedmen. R. M. Hall sold yesterday, at his Real Estate Exchange, 71 Louisiana avenue, to John R. Elvans, Esq., for $52,000 cash down, the large farm of Mrs. Barry, adjoining the Insane Asylum, and next to Uniontown 375 acres. This, including other sales, makes over $100,000 worth of property sold at Mr. Hall's exchange during the present month. We are informed that this purchase is made by Mr. Elvans, in trust to General O. O. Howard, Senator S. C. Pomeroy, and himself, as trustees, for the purpose of dividing the Barry farm into one or two acres, to be sold on a credit of three years to deserving freedmen, at a maximum price of $125 per acres, in order to test the capability of colored farmers to be self sustaining, when offered the incentive of ultimate land-ownership. The proceeds of these sales and the interest, to be appropriated to the use of freedmen's colleges in the District of Columbia, Virginia, and North Carolina, in equal proportions, in accordance with an act of Congress.
58. TRANA_200507_354.JPG: This 1878 map shows Potomac City (Barry Farm) with streets named for abolitionists and Freedmen's Bureau officials. Roads followed the contours of the land.
59. TRANA_200507_356.JPG: In 1942 the Stanton Rd. house above was one of the few remaining Barry Farm originals.
60. TRANA_200507_359.JPG: Attorney John Moss, a former slave and a Civil War veteran, posed with his wife Ellen and family at their Nichols Ave. Home/office, later replaced by the Barry Farm playing field.
61. TRANA_200507_366.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
62. TRANA_200507_376.JPG: Artist and Anacostia resident John Robinson (1912-1994) painted substantial Hillsdale houses and an eroded hillside in "Anacostia Hills," in 1944. Across the river is the Navy Yard.
63. TRANA_200507_378.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
64. TRANA_200507_381.JPG: Matthews Memorial Baptist Church celebrates its second building with a dedication service, 1960. A third church building opened next door in 1999.
65. TRANA_200507_384.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 6 Grandpapa's Farm Vernon Tancil grew up in Northeast D.C., but he so loved summers on his grandfather's small farm in Hillsdale that his parents let him stay on in September 1937 and attend fourth grade at Birney School. Grandpapa Horace Hansborough grew potatoes, string beans, corn, fruit, and cosmos (his favorite flower) on the hillside property along Douglass Road. On less than three-quarters of an acre, he also kept chickens, pigeons, and a few hogs. Grandpapa Hansborough was born in Culpeper, Virginia, a few years after the end of the Civil War (1861-1865). His father, while a farmer, had owned his mother and many of his older siblings. Widowed in the early 1900s, Grandpapa and his five children moved to Washington. He worked as a gardener at the Naval Hospital on Capitol Hill and as a Navy Yard laborer. About 1918 he and second wife Lula rented a place on Bowen Road. Grandpapa sold produce out of his truck and saved up enough to buy the Douglass Road property that young Vernon visited. Like their neighbors, the Hansboroughs lived without electricity or running water. A wood-burning kitchen stove heated the house. Even at the end of their lives in 1949, they still hauled water from a pump at the bottom of the hill and used an outhouse. In the early 1960s, the area still held barns, chickens, and fruit trees. "Almost every yard had a pear tree," Anacostian Rev. Oliver Johnson remembered. "Even if you were poor, you never went hungry." But Hillsdale's rural character was fading fast as city officials rezoned much of Anacostia for apartments. The 525-unit Stanton Gardens replaced Grandpapa's farm in 1965. Matthew Memorial Baptist Church, one block north of this sign, was founded in 1921 by former members of Bethlehem Baptist Church.
66. TRANA_200507_416.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 5 The Curative Powers of Nature The fence and wall ahead of you, on either side of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, enclose historic St. Elizabeths Hospital. The pioneering facility opened in 1855 to treat mentally ill members of the armed forces and DC residents. At a time when the mentally ill were ignored or locked away, the prominent Bostonian social reformer Dorothea Lynde Dix persuaded Congress to fund the nation's first public institution to provide them with treatment. President Millard Fillmore appointed Dr. Charles H. Nichols to head the new Government Hospital for the Insane. Together Nichols and Dix chose this beautiful spot away from the city because they believed in the curative powers of nature. During the Civil War (1861-1865) the hospital treated ill and injured soldiers, both Union and Confederate, who preferred to call it "St. Elizabeths," an old name for the property. Congress made the change permanent in 1916. The East Campus, across the avenue, was added in 1869, when the government bought Shepherd Farm to raise food for staff and patients. For nearly a century, the hospital was practically self-sufficient. St. Elizabeths' patient population peaked at close to 8,000 in the 1940s. After World War II, many patients went to new veterans' hospitals or received treatment in residential settings. The DC government provided mental health services on the West Campus from 1987 until 2004. Redevelopment began in 2011. Old maps show many names for this street. Originally Bladensburg-Piscataway Road, it became known as Asylum Road once the hospital opened. In 1872 it was renamed Nichols Avenue for the hospital's first superintendent. A century later it became Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue to honor the slain civil rights leader.
67. TRANA_200507_422.JPG: Dorothea Lynde Dix moved to Washington to advocate for humane care of the mentally ill.
68. TRANA_200507_425.JPG: Dr. Charles Henry Nichols, first superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital and namesake of Nichols Avenue., later Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.
69. TRANA_200507_427.JPG: St. Elizabeths Hospital once displayed its patient count on this ornate signboard.
70. TRANA_200507_430.JPG: George T. Luckett, left, and fireman C.B. McClure operated a pint-size locomotive that ran to and from the B&O Railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill.
71. TRANA_200507_434.JPG: Hospital workers demonstrate weaving as prescribed for patients during World War II.
72. TRANA_200507_439.JPG: A patient in art therapy produced this portrait of Dred Scott for the Bicentennial Mural Series, 1976.
73. TRANA_200507_442.JPG: The elegant Center Building was designed for the West Campus by Thomas U. Walter, architect of the Capitol.
74. TRANA_200507_447.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
75. TRANA_200507_451.JPG: St. Elizabeths Hospital spans Nichols (later Martin Luther King Jr.) Ave., 1937. The East Campus at right included a working farm, visible at center.
76. TRANA_200507_457.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 7 Roads That Divide In the early evening of November 22, 1963, a clutch of people stood forlornly on this bridge spanning Suitland Parkway. They awaited the procession carrying the body of slain President John F. Kennedy from Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where it would be prepared for burial. Kennedy had been assassinated earlier that day in Dallas, Texas. The vehicles also carried his widow Jacqueline and newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird. Suitland Parkway had opened in 1944 to connect the new Camp Springs Army Air Base (later Andrews Air Force Base) and the Anacostia Naval Station and Bolling Field (later Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling). It also connected new federal office buildings in Suitland to downtown DC via the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. To build the parkway, however, the U.S. government razed house and separated communities. A decade later, when the National Capital Planning Commission considered building I-295 to provide commuters a shortcut through east-of-the-river neighborhoods, Anacostians protested that the project would destroy school recreation areas, reduce property values, and harm businesses. Eventually the commission agreed to place the I-295 freeway in Anacostia Park, and construction started in the late 1950s. While the compromise saved the neighborhoods, it did not stop the highway from separating them from the riverfront. The modern Sheridan Station replaced the run-down Sheridan Terrace public housing, built in the later 1950s. Because urban renewal was pushing low-income renters out of neighborhoods across the river, the city rezoned much of Anacostia for affordable apartments to house them. Some of the new units were shoddily built and wore out quickly. By 1975 about 85 percent of Anacostia's housing was rental property. Within a generation this once-rural section had become solidly urban.
77. TRANA_200507_486.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
78. TRANA_200507_493.JPG: Suitland Parkway winds its way through Hillsdale, 1955. The highway replaced much of Sheridan Rd. and all the houses and buildings in its path.
79. TRANA_200507_495.JPG: An East-of-the River View Anacostia Heritage Trail 18 The Sage of Anacostia This imposing property once belonged to Anacostia's most famous resident: Frederick Douglass. After escaping slavery as a young man, Douglass rose to become a distinguished abolitionist, writer, publisher, and orator. By the 1860s Douglass was one of the nation's intellectual and political giants who had President Lincoln's ear. Douglass argued early in the Civil War that Lincoln should allow African Americans to fight as soldiers in the Union army. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Douglass to the prestigious position of U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia in 1877. Soon after, Douglass purchased the country retreat of bankrupt Uniontown founder John Van Hook in a mostly white neighborhood and named it Cedar Hill. His sons lived in the adjacent, mostly African-American, Hillsdale community. From his hilltop porch Douglass could look out across his acres of fruit and vegetable gardens and down upon the official Washington that so often disrespected him because of his race. Active in local as well as national affairs, Douglass hosted gatherings at Cedar Hill, spoke frequently at local churches, and served on Howard University's Board of Trustees. Succeeding U.S. Presidents appointed Douglass as DC recorder of deeds and ambassador to Haiti. The "Sage of Anacostia" died at home on February 20, 1895. His widow, Helen Pitts Douglass, left Cedar Hill to the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association upon her death in 1903. Despite volunteer maintenance and fundraising, the house fell into disrepair. Eventually Congress answered community demands and appropriated funds for the National Park Service to acquire and restore the home. It opened to the public in 1972. The visitors' center entrance is a short distance ahead on W Street.
80. TRANA_200507_499.JPG: Neighborhood volunteers organized by the Anacostia Coordinating Committee joined federal laborers to maintain Cedar Hill over the years.
81. TRANA_200507_504.JPG: For 34 years Gladys Parham, seen in Cedar Hill's parlor, served as the caretaker while campaigning for the home's restoration.
82. TRANA_200507_511.JPG: Douglass's first wife, Anna, left, died at Cedar Hill in 1882 at age 69. Two years later he married his former clerk, suffragist Helen Pitts (seated with Douglass and Helen's sister Eva).
83. TRANA_200507_513.JPG: Frederick Douglass at work in the west parlor of Cedar Hill.
84. TRANA_200507_518.JPG: Neighborhood children prepare to toboggan down W St. around 1920.
85. TRANA_200507_519.JPG: National Park Ranger Gentry Davis describes Cedar Hill's dining room, 1972.
86. TRANA_200507_522.JPG: An East-of-the-River View Anacostia Heritage Trail For thousands of years a people called the Nacotchtanks lived here, trading and harvesting the riches of land and river. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s. At first they traded with the Indians, too, but they soon claimed land and began farming. Before long, the Nacotchtanks were gone, driven from the area by Europeans or killed by their diseases. All that remained was a version of their name: Anacostia. Two villages founded here in the mid-1800s, white Uniontown and African-American Barry Farm, developed separately for a century. Today's Anacostia embraces both and is but one of some 30 neighborhoods located east of the Anacostia River. After 1900 this area grew with manufacturing and military installations. But during the 1960s, questionable government policies changed Anacostia drastically, leaving portions poor, overcrowded, and without adequate services. While many people left, those who stayed kept their communities strong, attracting new residents and investment as the 21st century began. An East-of-the-River View: Anacostia Heritage Trail presents this complex history – and the best views in the city. Twenty signs take you on a two-mile walk ending at 13th and U Sts., SE. To return to the Anacostia Metro Station, walk to Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and turn left, proceed six blocks to Howard Rd. and turn right. Or take Metrobus 92 from 13th St. and Good Hope Rd.
87. TRANA_200507_525.JPG: This 2013 panorama captures the view from Cedar Hill.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].