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A Fitting Tribute
Logan Circle Heritage Trail
6 Logan Circle, Just Ahead
Some of the City's finest Victorian Houses ring Logan Circle. While the area appears on the L'Enfant Plan of 1791, it took Alexander "Boss" Shephard's improvements to make these grand houses of the 1870s and '80s possible.
Three Union leaders of the Civil War set up housekeeping on the new Iowa Circle, as Logan Circle was originally named. General Eliphalet Whittlesey of Number 8 worked for the Freedman's Bureau after the war and helped start Howard University. Captain Allen V. Reed, wartime commander of the USS Kansas lived at 6 Logan Circle; his daughters remained there into the 1930s. General Benjamin Brice, Paymaster general, lived at number 20.
Most notable was former Union Army General John A. Logan. On June 12, 1885, African American bands played and a crowd cheered as Logan arrived home at Iowa Circle. The recently re-elected U.S. senator from Illinois was known for promoting civil rights and establishing Memorial Day in 1868. After thanking the crowd, Logan invited all inside, where he reportedly shook a thousand hands. In 1901 veterans joined Congress to fund the circle's monument to Logan.
By 1930 nearby Howard University had attracted many affluent black families to Logan Circle. With U Street's "Black Broadway" so close, and segregation barring African Americans from white-owned hotels, entrepreneurs converted some large houses into lodgings that catered to black travelers. Myrtle Williams, who opened the Cadillac Hotel at 1500 Vermont Avenue in 1941 explained, "We like to travel, but we could never find a decent place where a colored person could lay his head." The Negro Green Book listed DC's welcoming accommodations. |