Block Research Paper

Block Research Paper

Introduction

The Tenleytown Heritage Trail was launched in November 2011. It is a self-guided three mile walk, including nineteenth century estates, the highest natural elevation in the District of Columbia, and Fort Reno, part of the ring of forts built to protect the capital during the Civil War. The signs provide photographs and reminiscences. Brochures are available at the Tenley Friendship Library (corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Albemarle Street) and Middle C Music (corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Brandywine.)

The Tenleytown Heritage Trail is a project of Cultural Tourism DC in collaboration with the District Department of Transportation. Tenleytown Historical Society and Tenleytown Neighbors Association are cosponsors of the Trail with Cultural Tourism DC. The Tenleytown Heritage Trail Working Group comprised of members of these organizations and the wider community planned the trail.

Thesis Statement

The Tenleytown Historical Society takes seriously the responsibility for the oversight of historic sites in its area.

Analysis

The history of Tenleytown begins with a tavern. A man named John Tennally opened one in the late 1700s at the spot where River Road now meets Wisconsin Avenue. Over time, a village of farms and estates —called “Tennallytown” — sprouted up around that central tavern.

In the time between then and now, the Northwest D.C. neighborhood has undergone many phases to become the commercial center, American University home and residential enclave it is today. It's been host to a Civil War fort, an African-American community called Reno City (which the federal government started dismantling in the late 1920s), a top-secret code-breaking center during World War II, and a variety of radio and television broadcast centers.

The markers — signposts with stories, photographs and maps — make up the “Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail,” a three-mile selfguided walking tour that traces the area's history from Tennally's tavern onward. The heritage trail, the 11th in the city, will celebrate its launch on Nov. 13. Cultural Tourism DC, the nonprofit that organizes the trails with funds from the city and federal government, plans to complete 17 total and is now working on trails for Georgia Avenue, H Street NE and Anacostia.

Cultural Tourism DC historian Mara Cherkasky said planning for the Tenleytown project began three years ago. The organization benefited from a number of resources, Cherkaskysaid: a well-established local historical society, “lots of people active in the neighborhood history and preservation” and Judith Beck Helm's 1981 book on the area's history. That book, “Tenleytown, DC: Country Village Into City Neighborhood,” became “a bible” for the project, Cherkasky said.

The newly created trail guides pedestrians from Fort Reno Park down through the restaurants and chain stores on Wisconsin Avenue and along Nebraska Avenue to Ward Circle. It also dives off onto a handful of sites on residential streets deeper into the neighborhood. Some of the highlights include:

“Reno City” (Marker 6, at Chesapeake and 40th streets). During the Civil War, Union troops seized the property of farmer Giles Dyer to create Fort Pennsylvania — later renamed Fort Reno — at the city's highest natural ...