BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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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. TRDUTY_200504_001.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail When celebrated composer John Philip Sousa walked these streets, people called this Capitol Hill neighborhood "Navy Yard." While the Navy Yard is no longer the area's major employer, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps still anchor this pleasant residential community and its vibrant commercial center on Eighth Street, SE, now known as Barracks Row. The 16 signs that mark this walking trail describe temporary sojourners as well as families who have lived here for many generations. From Michael Shiner an African American laborer working at the Navy Yard, to John Dahlgren, a weapons pioneer and confidant of President Abraham Lincoln, their experiences have given the community its distinctive character. Follow this trail to the places that tell these stories and much, much more. Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail, a booklet of the trail's highlights, is available at businesses along the way. Visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org to learn about other DC neighborhoods. List of contributors and sponsors to the Barracks Row Heritage Trail.
2. TRDUTY_200504_005.JPG: The Washington Navy Yard, seen here in 1862, first built ships and tested ship designs before becoming a center of weapons design and manufacturing for more than a century it was the neighborhood's largest employer.
3. TRDUTY_200504_009.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail 1 Edge of the Row America's oldest navy and marine installations are just blocks from where you are standing. This is the northern edge of a Capitol Hill community shaped by the presence of the U.S. military. Eighth Street is its commercial center. The Washington Navy Yard anchors the far end, where Eighth Street meets the Anacostia River. At this end, just one block from here, is the Old Naval Hospital. And halfway in between is the Marine Barracks, home of the United States Marine Band and inspiration for a local boy who made good: John Philip Sousa. Eighth Street was planned as a commercial avenue leading to a natural harbor on the Anacostia River, where city designer Pierre L'Enfant designated a future trade center. But in 1799 President John Adams decided instead to give the site to the Navy for its Washington shipyard. Either way, Eighth Street was destined to be a street of business. In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson added another military installation: the Marine Barracks at Eighth and I Streets. Soon, as the Navy Yard became a major employer, small businesses emerged along Eighth. This community grew with the young nation. As you walk this trail, you'll see a variety of 19th- and early 20th-century building styles. They are reminders of the neighborhood's economically diverse population – laborers, merchants, marines and sailors, and the politically powerful.
4. TRDUTY_200504_013.JPG: U.S. Marines and neighborhood children pose outside the old Marine Barracks, circa 1890.
5. TRDUTY_200504_017.JPG: Tucker's Grocery (1919) operated from the house you can see to your right at the corner of Seventh and D from 1903 until 1935.
6. TRDUTY_200504_021.JPG: President John F. Kennedy speaks to sailors aboard the U.S. Coast Guard sail training ship Eagle at the Navy Yard.
7. TRDUTY_200504_022.JPG: L'Enfant's original plan for Washington placed a mercantile exchange (trading center) where the Navy Yard is today.
8. TRDUTY_200504_025.JPG: The brand-new Wallach School (1863), designed by noted architect Adolf Cluss, was located where you can see today's Hine Junior High School across Pennsylvania Avenue.
9. TRDUTY_200504_031.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail 2 At the Crossroads The large building that wraps around this corner was constructed as a department store in 1892 by Elizabeth A. Haines. She proudly advertised it as "the largest store in the world, built, owned and controlled by a woman." Back then extended families typically had six to fourteen people, and Haines knew that hundreds of potential customers passed this intersection daily. More than a century earlier, before Washington's founding in 1791, Pennsylvania Avenue was a bumpy dirt road connecting the Maryland countryside beyond the Anacostia River to the port of Georgetown on the Potomac. Its stagecoach, cart, and carriage traffic grew with the new capital. Lewis DeBlois noted the traffic, and in 1795 he built one of the area's first taverns. It was once located ahead of you on the corner occupied in 2004 by a gas station. William Tunnicliff soon took over the tavern and it became known as Tunnicliff's Tavern. It offered food, lodging and spirits to travelers and residents here before he moved the business closer to the Capitol and its politicians. Washington grew dramatically during and after the Civil War, and so did Eighth Street. New businesses served the military and a growing population of government clerks and Navy Yard workers. When the widow Haines arrived in 1882, she and her children lived above a small store nearby on 11th Street. After ten successful years, she commissioned noted local architect Julius G. Germuiller to design this grand department store. Haines's store - "fifty stores in one" - was the largest enterprise here. Most others were modest family businesses like George J. Beckert's cigar store at 405 Eighth Street.
10. TRDUTY_200504_050.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail When celebrated composer John Philip Sousa walked these streets, people called this Capitol Hill neighborhood "Navy Yard." While the Navy Yard is no longer the area's major employer, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps still anchor this pleasant residential community and its vibrant commercial center on Eighth Street, SE, now known as Barracks Row. The 16 signs that mark this walking trail describe temporary sojourners as well as families who have lived here for many generations. From Michael Shiner an African American laborer working at the Navy Yard, to John Dahlgren, a weapons pioneer and confidant of President Abraham Lincoln, their experiences have given the community its distinctive character. Follow this trail to the places that tell these stories and much, much more. Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail, a booklet of the trail's highlights, is available at businesses along the way. Visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org to learn about other DC neighborhoods. List of contributors and sponsors to the Barracks Row Heritage Trail.
11. TRDUTY_200504_053.JPG: In this rare 1857 bird's-eye view looking east from the Capitol, the broad street at far right is Pennsylvania Avenue, with the Anacostia River beyond. A Navy Yard smokestack is visible at the far right.
12. TRDUTY_200504_062.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail 3 Commerce and Community The home/music studio of John Esputa, Jr., once occupied the site of 511 Eighth Street (Shakespeare Theatre's rehearsal hall.) Among Esputa's students in 1861 was eight-year-old John Philip Sousa, whose irresistible marches made him one of America's first musical superstars. The street's small gable-roofed buildings probably pre-date Sousa's era, while the larger buildings were erected during a post-Civil War building boom. In 1877 Adam DeMoll contributed the two- story brick building on the northeast corner of Eighth and E. Here he, and later his son Theodore, operated a drug store. The family lived upstairs. At 525 Eighth Street is one of a string of pubs built by Albert Carry and designed by Clement Didden. Carry came to Washington from Germany in 1887, helped found the National Capital Bank of Washington (1889), and built the National Capital Brewing Company (1890). When Prohibition became law in 1917, the brewery became an ice cream factory. Eventually Carry sold it to concentrate on real estate and banking. Carry's daughter Marie married Didden's son George, uniting the two entrepreneurial families. The Harmony Lodge of the International Order of Odd Fellows, dedicated to fraternity and good works, built the street's grandest structure here at 516 Eighth in 1878. The lodge held its meetings upstairs until around 1900, when it merged with a lodge downtown. The elegant Second Empire style building passed through many hands until 1997, when the Shakespeare Theatre purchased the dilapidated building and restored it for office space.
13. TRDUTY_200504_082.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail When celebrated composer John Philip Sousa walked these streets, people called this Capitol Hill neighborhood "Navy Yard." While the Navy Yard is no longer the area's major employer, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps still anchor this pleasant residential community and its vibrant commercial center on Eighth Street, SE, now known as Barracks Row. The 16 signs that mark this walking trail describe temporary sojourners as well as families who have lived here for many generations. From Michael Shiner an African American laborer working at the Navy Yard, to John Dahlgren, a weapons pioneer and confidant of President Abraham Lincoln, their experiences have given the community its distinctive character. Follow this trail to the places that tell these stories and much, much more. Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail, a booklet of the trail's highlights, is available at businesses along the way. Visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org to learn about other DC neighborhoods. List of contributors and sponsors to the Barracks Row Heritage Trail.
14. TRDUTY_200504_086.JPG: The International Order of Odd Fellows lodge, the tallest building at center, was built in 1878 and still reigns as the grande dame of Eighth Street. This 1961 scene captures a power failure that stopped DC Transit's streetcars in their tracks.
15. TRDUTY_200504_092.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail 6 A Neighborhood For Everyone The buildings near this corner were built during a wave of private development that began after the United States won the Spanish-American War in 1898, and became a world power for the first time. As America flexed its muscles, the world -- and Eighth Street -- felt the impact. In response, the Marines began rebuilding the Barracks in 1901, and the Navy Yard expanded the following year. The growing work force needed more housing and services too. New buildings soon filled in vacant lots or replaced old structures along Eighth Street. In 1908 the Washington and Mechanics Savings Bank, later the City Bank, went up on this corner as the row's first bank, reflecting the area's bright economic prospects. Eastern European and Asian immigrants, as well as American-born blacks and whites, joined the area's already diverse pre-Civil War population. Diagonally across the street from this sign stands 701 Eighth Street, built in 1902 by Irishman James O'Donnell as a combination store and apartment building. O'Donnell ran a drugstore on the first floor and rented the second- and third-floor "flats." Ten years later, Louis Rosenberg built 545 Eighth Street, across Eighth from this sign, as four independent stores (one of which was his shoe store) topped with apartments. Rosenberg was one of many Eastern European Jews to choose the neighborhood. By 1939 the Southeast Hebrew Congregation (organized in 1909) was large enough to purchase a permanent meeting place at 417 Ninth Street. In 1962, the old Academy Theater became the home of the purposely bi-racial Peoples Church, a Christian ministry of reconciliation.
16. TRDUTY_200504_111.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail When celebrated composer John Philip Sousa walked these streets, people called this Capitol Hill neighborhood "Navy Yard." While the Navy Yard is no longer the area's major employer, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps still anchor this pleasant residential community and its vibrant commercial center on Eighth Street, SE, now known as Barracks Row. The 16 signs that mark this walking trail describe temporary sojourners as well as families who have lived here for many generations. From Michael Shiner an African American laborer working at the Navy Yard, to John Dahlgren, a weapons pioneer and confidant of President Abraham Lincoln, their experiences have given the community its distinctive character. Follow this trail to the places that tell these stories and much, much more. Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail, a booklet of the trail's highlights, is available at businesses along the way. Visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org to learn about other DC neighborhoods. List of contributors and sponsors to the Barracks Row Heritage Trail.
17. TRDUTY_200504_118.JPG: Construction workers build the Marine Barracks' stately brick officers quarters in 1908, as photographed from Eighth and I Sts.
18. TRDUTY_200504_122.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail When celebrated composer John Philip Sousa walked these streets, people called this Capitol Hill neighborhood "Navy Yard." While the Navy Yard is no longer the area's major employer, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps still anchor this pleasant residential community and its vibrant commercial center on Eighth Street, SE, now known as Barracks Row. The 16 signs that mark this walking trail describe temporary sojourners as well as families who have lived here for many generations. From Michael Shiner an African American laborer working at the Navy Yard, to John Dahlgren, a weapons pioneer and confidant of President Abraham Lincoln, their experiences have given the community its distinctive character. Follow this trail to the places that tell these stories and much, much more. Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail, a booklet of the trail's highlights, is available at businesses along the way. Visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org to learn about other DC neighborhoods. List of contributors and sponsors to the Barracks Row Heritage Trail.
19. TRDUTY_200504_126.JPG: The Marine Barracks Parade Grounds and architect (George Hadfield's original arcaded quarters, around 1905-06.
20. TRDUTY_200504_129.JPG: Tour of Duty Barracks Row Heritage Trail 5 Oldest Post of the Corps On your left is Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., the oldest continuously manned post in the U.S. Marine Corps. The installation was originally designed by architect George Hadfield in 1801 with a central parade ground and housing for 500 enlisted and officers in addition to the Commandant's Quarters (in mid-block across the street). This elegant 23-room house, enhanced in 1901 by a mansard roof, is the only remaining original structure. When the U.S. government moved from Philadelphia to Washington City in 1800, the Marine Corps came as well to protect all federal buildings. At first the Marines camped in Georgetown and on E Street, NW. In March 1801, President Thomas Jefferson, accompanied by Marine Lieutenant Colonel William Ward Burroughs, selected this site for the Marine Barracks. It was near the Navy Yard and within easy marching distance to the Capitol and the President's House in case of trouble. During the War of 1812, the Marine Barracks was one of the few public structures not destroyed by the British invaders. One local legend explains that British General Ross, after witnessing the Marines at the Battle of Bladensburg, ordered it spared "as a gesture of soldierly respect." The Marines defended Washington in the War of 1812 and have fought on land and sea in every U.S. conflict since. (With thanks for research by Lena Kaljot, Marine Corps Historical Center.)
21. TRDUTY_200504_132.JPG: Two members of the world-famous U.S. Marine Silent Drill Team perform an over-the-shoulder rifle exchange in 1978. The Barracks is both home and public performance space for special Marine ceremonial units.
22. TRDUTY_200504_135.JPG: In 1857 Marines defended Washingtonians against election day rioters at the Northern Liberty Market in Mount Vernon Square, sit of today's City Museum on K Street, NW.
23. TRDUTY_200504_139.JPG: Marine officers with the Commandant's Quarters in the background, 1896.
24. TRDUTY_200504_142.JPG: In 1814 British soldiers burned much of official Washington, but the Marine Barracks was spared.
25. TRDUTY_200504_145.JPG: A Marine Barracks squad room on the eve of World War I.
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC Heritage Trails: Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2021_DC_Trails_Duty: DC Heritage Trails: Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail (12 photos from 2021)
- 2014_DC_Trails_Duty: DC Heritage Trails: Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail (4 photos from 2014)
- 2009_DC_Trails_Duty: DC Heritage Trails: Tour of Duty: Barracks Row Heritage Trail (2 photos from 2009)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Heritage Trails] [Neighborhoods]
2020 photos: Well, that was a year, wasn't it? The COVID-19 pandemic cut off most events here in DC after March 11. The child president's handling of the pandemic was a series of disastrous missteps and lies, encouraging his minions to not wear masks and dramatically increasing infections and deaths here.The BLM protests started in June, made all the worse by the child president's inability to have any empathy for anyone other than himself. Then of course he tried to steal the election in November. What a year! Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. The farthest distance I traveled after that was about 40 miles. I only visited sites in four states -- Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and DC. That was the least amount of travel I had done since 1995. Number of photos taken this year: about 246,000, the fewest number of photos I had taken in any year since 2007.
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