In the 1860s, there was a great deal of administrative interest in the prospect of acquiring a patch of land on which to construct a presidential park or a mansion away from the city portion of D.C. A proposal was made for using the Rock Creek area as early as 1866, but it was not until 1889 that Senator John Sherman of Ohio proposed the idea at the 51st Congress that it was seriously accepted. On January 28, 1890, a bill was passed to acquire the land and to consecrate as a National Park. Five days after passing the bill, the Creek Rock area was acquired by the U.S. government.The Rock Creek Park was originally operated by military advisors, beginning in late 1894, and under this supervision, construction of a parkway through the Park was enacted around 1913. In 1933, the administration of the Park was ceded to the National Park Service in an executive order, and is how it has remained until the present time. With the administration of the National Park Services came the construction of numerous monuments and facilities in the park, such as the Horse Center in 1972.

Park Entrance sign at the Maryland border by TrailVoice on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The National Park Services page for Rock Creek Park

Website

More Info

Rock Creek Park is the third-oldest National Park in the United States, established in 1890. The Park encompasses over 2,000 acres, and includes not just wildlife, but recreational facilities such as a tennis stadium, a golf course, horse trails, as well as other facilities such as an amphitheater, a planetarium, a concert venue, and cultural exhibits. The Park is run by the National Park Services and is open to the public.

Rock Creek Park

Tour of sites within one of the oldest national parks in the country.

Rock Creek Park Walking Tour

During the American Civil War, the Union Army built a series of earthen forts to protect Washington, D.C. from the Confederacy. Fort DeRussy, Fort Reno, and Fort Kearney were sanctioned and Union troops controlled the Rock Creek valley and country roads approaching the city. The 4th New York Heavy Artillery Unit built Fort DeRussy in 1861 naming it after the De Russy military family. Gustavus De Russy was a general during the Civil War and his father, Rene, designed many military fortifications on the nation’s east coast. The fort sits on a hill that is situated to provide crossfire on the approach to Fort Stevens, which stood to the east.Fort DeRussy's most significant military action was in July 1864, when Confederate General Jubal Early attacked Fort Stevens with his soldiers. Fort DeRussy's 100-pound Parrott rifle was the largest artillery used in the battle. It was supported by other guns and mortars which halted the Confederate advance on Fort Stevens. There were a total of 13 guns on the grounds of the fort for defense. The Parrott rifle could fire off 32 rounds when used in war.After the war, the area of the fort reverted to civilian ownership and opened as a public park space. The materials fitting from the dismantled outbuildings -- timber, masonry, hinges, nails, etc. -- were offered for public sale. Advocacy for the preservation of the fort as a park began in the 1860 and then in 1890. Fort DeRussy became part of the new Rock Creek Park. The earthworks of the fort are still visible, consisting of a parapet with openings for guns, a dry moat, and rifle trenches. The forest surrounding the park has overtaken it with leaves and vines everywhere around it. In 1974, the National Register of Historic Places recognized Fort DeRussy as part of a Civil War Fort Sites nomination.

Built in 1861, Fort DeRussy was used by the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Union Army built 68 earthen forts to defend Washington, D.C. from Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The outline of this fort still remains even after the many years concluding the war. Fort DeRussy's artillery, especially it’s 100-pound Parrott gun, was pivotal to defending nearby Fort Stevens from a Confederate attack in July 1864. The remains of the fort are now part of Rock Creek Park and have been largely overtaken by the forest, but visitors can still see evidence of the former fort. The site is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places and maintained by the National Park Service.

Fort DeRussy

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed J. George Stewart as Architect of the Capitol. He was a former Delaware Congressman and not a trained architect. In 1958, Stewart advocated for a renovation of the east façade of the Capitol building to create additional office space and a subway terminal. Additionally, he wanted to replace the sandstone with marble. Because of his lack of expertise, the proposal was not popular, but Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn supported the renovation and it went forward. The demolition and reconstruction took place in 1958 and 1959, with some elements of the architecture being preserved and others discarded. The East Front was taken apart and its portico dismantled. Its columns, which dated back to 1828, were first sent to the Capitol Power Plant and then the <a href="https://www.theclio.com/entry/16457" target="_blank">National Arboretum</a>. Discarded stones were left in Rock Creek park. The sandstone and marble blocks in the park were part of the Capitol in the 1800s, with some possibly as old as 1818. The blocks offer a history of nineteenth-century quarrying, building, and carving techniques. Some of the stone is unmarked masonry, but there are some decorative pieces as well. The ownership of the stones is unclear, and the piles have possibly grown larger as a result of other Capitol renovations.

In 1958, the Architect of the Capitol J. George Stewart removed hundreds of sandstone blocks from the eastern façade Capitol Building during a renovation, supported by Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. The stones were left in Rock Creek Park, and have remained there ever since. They vary in size and purpose, and provide a glimpse into the history of quarrying and carving techniques used on the Capitol building in the 1800s. The site is not maintained by any government body, but is an unofficial and unmarked monument within the park. Subsequent renovations have added to the heaps of stones in the park.

Capitol Stones

Milling grain into flour has been a labor-intensive process throughout most of human history. The farmland in the area where Washington D.C. now stands produced a variety of grains -- generally wheat, rye, and corn -- which transformed into flour at small mills powered by water wheels turning grindstones. The wave of technological development of the Industrial Revolution brought mechanization to milling, and the inventions at Peirce Mill allowed it to be operated by a single miller. Quaker farmer and large landholder Isaac Peirce (1756-1841) constructed this blue granite mill in 1829 with his son Abner (1785-1851), a stone mason. A stone plaque on south gable of the mill reads B. I. P. 1829. This could stand for Betty and Isaac Peirce, 1829, (a reference to Peirce's wife Elizabeth) or "Built by Isaac Peirce, 1829."American inventor Oliver Evans (1755-1819) designed the patents for the machinery here which Peirce replicated. Water from Rock Creek turned a wheel attached to a shaft which moved gears and belts to grind grain. Peirce owned and operated the mill, but the millers themselves were hired men. Abner Peirce operated the mill from his father's death in 1841 to his own ten years later. His nephew Peirce Shoemaker (1816-1891) inherited the mill and operated it for another forty years. Upon his death, the federal government purchased the mill as part of the parcel that was to become Rock Creek Park. The mill continued to grind flour until a broken shaft in 1897 halted operations. The Peirce Mill Tea House opened in the building in 1906 and ran for almost thirty years. Briefly its proprietor was an African-American woman, Hattie L. Sewell; the complaints of a racist neighbor forced her from the business after only a year. The tea house closed entirely in 1934 when a Works Progress Administration undertook a project to restore the mill to working order. The New Deal had transferred the whole park to the National Park Service the previous year. When the mill reopened in 1937, 2600 spectators watched it come to life again. The mill has required several additional maintenance projects throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, most recently in 2011 when it was restored with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The mill is open to the public as part of the park, with milling demonstrations twice a month on Saturdays between April and October.

Built in 1829 by Isaac Peirce, this gristmill was part of the vanguard of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The mill utilized mechanical innovations created by American inventor Oliver Evans to replace some of the human labor previously requiring in milling flour. The mill used water from Rock Creek to turn a wheel which in turn operated machinery inside. It operated until 1897. The U. S. goverment acquired the mill in its acquisition of the whole estate for Rock Creek Park, and restored the building between 1933 and 1936 as well as in the 1970s and at the beginning of the 21st century.

Peirce Mill

The two-story granite structure, built in the 1820s as a carriage house, stands next to Peirce Mill in what is now Rock Creek Park. The National Park Service acquired the building, which overlooks the embassies of Czechia (known as Czechoslovakia during the Cold War) and Hungary, in 1936. This vantage point made it a prime location for intelligence activities. During the Cold War, intelligence officers from the FBI went up to the attic of the building and went through a padlocked door and behind a false wall to access the listening station. The area was once a coop for homing pigeons. Within the listening station, agents took pictures through grated windows and monitored bugging equipment. Spy activities continued until midway through 1992. An alternative art collective, the Art Barn, used the downstairs space of the building for several decades beginning in 1971, all while spies worked upstairs. After the removal of the spy equipment in 1992, the Art Barn, which had long known about the activities of its neighbors, made public the information about the spy station at the Spy Club in downtown Washington. The Art Barn's space is now a small museum area, and the upper floor is in an employees-only part of the building. Public access is determined on a case-by-case basis by individual parl rangers.

While the lower floor of this former carriage house and homing pigeon coop was an art collective, the upper floor was a spy station in the middle of Rock Creek Park. During the Cold War, intelligence agents from the FBI used this space to observe the embassies of communist countries Czechoslovakia and Hungary. From 1971 into the 1990s, the alternative art space the Art Barn operated on the first floor. All the spy equipment was removed in 1992 and the building is part of Rock Creek Park, as it was throughout the twentieth century, and is maintained by the National Park Service.

Peirce Mill Spy Station and the Art Barn

Prominent land and mill owner Isaac Peirce owned a large estate on which this house, and Rock Creek Park, now sit. His son Joshua built this Pennsylvania Dutch-style house in 1823 out of blue and gray granite. He expanded the house with the addition of a west wing in 1843. Overlooking the Rock Creek valley, the building rises three stories and contains ten rooms. The south side of the building features a two-story veranda with iron scrollwork. Peirce was an avid horticulturalist and established extensive gardens on the property. He introduced box gardens to the capital, and grew the first ornamental plantings for the White House, Capitol, and other federal buildings and green spaces. His home was a gathering place for prominent Washington figures, and visitors included Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay. He also converted some of the estate into an 82-acre commercial nursery, the first in the nation's capital. Peirce named the property Linnaean Hill after Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who developed the binomial classification system for plant and animal species. The estate once contained eleven buildings, including greenhouses where Peirce grew camellias, developing new varieties. Extant on the site are <a href="https://www.theclio.com/entry/115261" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a barn</a> and carriage house, utility house, and potting shed. Enslaved laborers were the nursery's primary work force until about 1860. He died in 1869, leaving the property to his nephew, Joshua Peirce Klingle. Some of Peirce's plantings remained on the property into the twentieth century, such as hollies, magnolias, and drooping yews. Klingle sold the property to the federal government in 1890 as part of the creation of Rock Creek Park. The house was restored and rented as a private residence from 1937 to 1952. In the 1950s, the Rock Creek Park Nature Center operated in the mansion. Neighbors complained about traffic and noise from schoolchildren visiting the nature center; the principal of an area junior high school argued that what the neighbors were actually worried about was the presence of Black children on the grounds. The park constructed a purpose-built nature center which opened in 1960. The park leased the mansion to the Junior League of Washington from 1959 to 1972, at which point the National Park Service occupied the building again. Green Scene, an outreach program for horticulture, operated here in the 1970s, and the American Institute for Conservation leased it from 1982 to 1987. It is now an administrative building for the park.

Joshua Peirce built this house in 1823 overlooking the Rock Creek valley, and converted some of the estate into an 82-acre commercial nursery, the first in the nation's capital. In honor of Swedish naturalist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, Peirce named the mansion and nursery Linnaean Hill, and locally it is known as the Klingle Mansion. After Peirce's death in 1869, his nephew, Joshua Peirce Klingle, lived there with his wife. He sold the mansion and land to the federal government for the creation of Rock Creek Park in 1890. During the twentieth century it served as a nature center, and now it is the park's headquarters.

Linnaean Hill (Klingle Mansion)

In the 19th century, settler Isaac Pierce was a
prominent developer in the Washington, DC area. Pierce owned land around the
Rock Creek area, and around 1800, he built a house for himself there. Pierce
dies in 1841, but he left most of the property to Abner Pierce, his son. Abner
died soon after his father in 1851, and as a result, the property passed to Abner’s
nephew Pierce Shoemaker. Shoemaker made use of the land, but he tore down Isaac
Pierce’s home and built one of his own in 1876.

Though there is no official documentation to support the
claim, the Cloverdale home, which was reportedly built in 1910, was the result
of Shoemaker’s daughter Clara Neuman conducting a vast remodeling of the home.
It seems as though the property remained in the Shoemaker family for years, but
it is not entirely known for how long. Records also do not indicate when
ownership of the Cloverdale residence was transferred to the Chinese Government,
who now own the building and run it as the Education Office of the Chinese Embassy.
On August 9th of 1990, Cloverdale was added to the National Register
of Historic Places.

Cloverdale is a historic home located in Washington, DC’s Forest Hills Neighborhood. Originally constructed as a home in 1810, the building was remodeled numerous times while retaining its Colonial Revival style of architecture. In August of 1990, the home was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the building is no longer a home, but the Education Office of the Chinese Embassy.

Cloverdale

The Hillwood estate was originally a mansion that was built
in Georgian-style architecture, and was bought by Marjorie Post in 1955.
Marjorie herself was born to Ella and Charles Post, the founders of the Post
cereal company, and inherited a business and entrepreneurial work ethic from
her parents, which led her to become a vastly successful businesswoman. At the
age of 27, Marjorie inherited the company and soon after was married and formed
a family. It was during this time that Marjorie began to develop a taste for
late 18th-century French art, which was popular among the upper class
in New York at the time, through the influence of art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen.
Several marriages later, Marjorie visited the Soviet Union as an ambassador,
where she discovered imperial Russia’s decorative arts, which she added to her
ever-growing artistic tastes.

After divorcing her third husband, Marjorie bought Hillwood
in 1955 in order to serve a dual purpose: to be a fashionable home with plenty
of staff, and to also be a location where she could display her sizeable
artistic collections. Hillwood soon became the site of innumerable parties
among the upper class in Washington, DC, as well as garden tea gatherings and
formal dinners. In addition, Hillwood was also made host to Vietnam veterans in
the 1960s and 1970s, where they could attend tea gatherings with live
entertainment. After Marjorie Post’s passing, Hillwood was formed into a
permanent museum, which strives to bring Marjorie’s passion for excellence,
hospitality, and fine art to those who visit the estate.

Since its purchase in 1955 by the businesswoman, socialite, philanthropist and collector Marjorie Merriweather Post, Hillwood has served to function once as a place of residence, and forever as a museum to educate and awe those who visited it. Hillwood is known largely for its sizeable decorative arts collection that focuses heavily on the House of Romanov, a collection of French decorative art, and acres of sculpted gardens. Included in the collection are, among other pieces, Fabergé eggs, 18th and 19th century French art, and one of the country's finest orchid collections. Hillwood's mansion and gardens opened to the public in 1977 and are maintained by the Post Foundation.

Rock Creek Park Walking Tour

Rock Creek Park

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information