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Roads to Diversity
Adams Morgan Heritage Trail
11 Walter Pierce Park
The Rock Creek Valley, once home to Native Americans, had attracted European settlers by 1703. Before he became president in 1825, John Quincy Adams purchased Adams Mills on Rock Creek from his cousin. The mills, just down the hill, processed flour and plaster. While other millers here relied on slave labor, the anti-slavery Adams refused to do so.
The park to your left was once part of a pair of cemeteries established back when this hilltop lay beyond the city limits. After the Smithsonian began building the National Zoo in 1889, the cemetery associations moved remains nearest the zoo to other locations, including Woodlawn Cemetery in Southeast Washington.
In 1941 excavations began for new apartments where the park is today. In 1981 residents succeeded in creating Community Park West on the empty site. In 1991 the park was re-named for the late Walter Pierce, a high-profile member of the coalition that created it. That coalition included Washington's Society of Friends (Quakers) and Charlotte Filmore, founder of the Filmore Early Learning Center. Filmore was born in 1898 and lived to the age of 104. Her center provided low-cost and free day care to more than 500 African-American children. Its last location was 1811 Ontario Place, to your right.
During winter you can see a mansion on the Zoo grounds. It is Holt House, named for a physician, Dr. Henry Holt, who farmed the area. |