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A Self-Reliant People
Greater Deanwood Heritage Trail
8 With These Hands
Up the Hill to your left are several signature handcrafted houses, Beginning in the late 1800s, Deanwood attracted skilled black migrants, who freely passed on their know-how.
In the 1920s Jacob and Randolph Dodd built about 50 structures in Deanwood, including numbers 906, 910, 920, 925, 928, and 929 48th Street. They bought lots or built on those owned by white developers, often to designs of Lewis W. Giles, Sr. Randolph Dodd regularly trained, hired, and aided Deanwood's craftsmen. To save money, the Dodds installed windows only in the front and back of the houses. Owners sometimes cut side windows later.
Louis Jasper Logan worked as a brick mason and general contractor in DC, building homes for his family at 4905 Meade Street and 1000 48th Place. According to the family, Logan arrived from North Carolina in the 1920s with training from North Carolina A&T, "a peanut crop, and $100 in this pocket." Logan parlayed these into success, "led a humble life, yet died a millionaire" known for his generosity.
Edward L. Wright of 47th Place, another self-sufficient craftsman, built Deanwood's first television set, trained other to make TVs and broadcast and citizen band radios. Andrew Turner's mechanical aptitude led him to become a Tuskegee Airman during World War II. Neighbors still remember the day he made a detour to fly over the neighborhood.
As you walk along Sheriff Road to Sign 9, note that road grading that took place years after the houses were built left some of the houses far below or above street level. |