History

Mentions of Anacostia in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Anacostia", "Nichols avenue", "Good Hope road".

Clips are machine-read text (OCR) from scanned Evening Star pages on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, lightly cleaned (line-break hyphens rejoined, stray symbols removed); misspellings are the scanner's. Newspapers this old are public domain. Each clip links to its page at loc.gov. Clips that mention race, covenants, deed restrictions or slurs are skipped automatically (keyword list: race, races, racial, colored, coloured, negro, negroes, white only, whites only, for whites, white people, white persons, white residents, caucasian, segregation, segregated, covenant, covenants, restricted, restriction, restrictions, plus a list of slurs), because they need an editor's context; legal notices and lists of private individuals are skipped too.

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  2021 Nichols Ave SE · [1918(?)]The Anacostia Bank, 2021 Nichols Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C., decorated for a parade
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  2200 Nichols Ave SE · [1919?]Bury's drug store, 2200 Nichols Avenue, S.E., Anacostia, D.C.
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  Nichols Ave & U St SE · [between 1910 and 1920][Nichols Avenue and U St., S.E., Washington, D.C.]
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  Anacostia · [1919?]Stores in Anacostia, Washington, D.C.
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  St. Teresa Church, Anacostia · [between 1918 and 1928]St. Teresa Church, Anacostia, D.C.
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  Ketcham School, Anacostia · [between 1910 and 1926]Ketcham School, Anacostia, D.C.
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  Anacostia · [between 1910 and 1920][J.F. Campbell Hardware & Stoves, Anacostia, D.C.; decorated with American flags]
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  1411 W St SE · after 1933Frederick Douglass House, 1411 W Street, Southeast, Washington, District of Columbia, DC

Photographs from the Library of Congress (National Photo Company Collection; Historic American Buildings Survey), each with no known restrictions on publication or in the public domain, per the Library. Titles are the Library's, written when the photos were catalogued; some use the language of their time. Each links to its record.

Anacostia1886 (Uniontown platted 1854)

Honors: The Nacotchtank (Anacostan) people

The name traces to the Nacotchtank, Algonquian-speaking people John Smith met on the Eastern Branch in 1608; Henry Fleet wrote Nacostine in 1632 and Jesuit reports used Anacostans. The 1854 working-class subdivision here was Uniontown; in 1886 Congress renamed it Anacostia, because so many American towns were called Uniontown.

Earlier: UniontownSources: Anacostia: The Indigenous Origins of Its Name (Ghosts of DC) · Anacostia - Wikipedia · Anacostia Historic District (DC Historic Sites, DC Preservation League) · Anacostia Historic District, National Register nomination (NPS, 1978)

Cedar Hill (1411 W Street SE)1877

Uniontown developer John Van Hook built the house around 1855. Frederick Douglass bought it in 1877 for $6,700, named the cedar-ringed hilltop estate Cedar Hill, and lived there until his death in 1895, enlarging it from 14 to 21 rooms. The deed barred Black buyers; Douglass bought it anyway.

Sources: Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (National Park Service) · Frederick Douglass National Historic Site - Wikipedia · Anacostia Historic District, National Register nomination (NPS, 1978)

Fort Stanton Park (Fort Stanton Road SE)1861

Honors: Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War

Fort Stanton was built in September 1861 to guard the Navy Yard and was one of the larger earthworks east of the Anacostia River, with 18 guns. The Park Service says it was named for Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Two masonry bastions survive in what is now Fort Stanton Park.

Source: Fort Stanton (National Park Service)

Howard Road SEafter the 1867 survey

Honors: General Oliver O. Howard, head of the Freedmen's Bureau

One of the Barry Farm streets laid out after the Freedmen's Bureau bought Julia Barry's farm in 1867 and sold one-acre lots to freed families. Its streets honor Union generals, Radical Republicans and Bureau officials; this one is for General Oliver O. Howard, who steered Bureau funds to the purchase. Anacostia Metro station sits on it.

Sources: Barry Farm - Wikipedia · The history and evolution of Anacostia's Barry Farm (D.C. Policy Center) · Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue - Wikipedia

Marion Barry Avenue SE2023

Honors: Marion Barry Jr., four-term DC mayor

Long called Good Hope Road; an 1857 newspaper ad already placed Good Hope Hill in what is now Anacostia. The Marion Barry Avenue Designation Act of 2023 renamed it from Anacostia Drive to Alabama Avenue, keeping Good Hope Way as a symbolic name for its eastern end. Signs went up at a November 2023 block party.

Earlier: Good Hope RoadSources: D.C. Law 25-46, Marion Barry Avenue Designation Act of 2023 (D.C. Law Library) · Photos: DC Unveils Newly Named Marion Barry Avenue SE (DCist, 2023) · Anacostia: The Indigenous Origins of Its Name (Ghosts of DC)

Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE1971

Honors: Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader

Built in 1855 as Asylum Avenue, the road to the new Government Hospital for the Insane (St. Elizabeths). It became Nichols Avenue after the hospital's first superintendent, Charles Henry Nichols (DCist says 1872, Wikipedia 1879), and was renamed for King on January 15, 1971, his birthday.

Earlier: Asylum Avenue, Nichols AvenueSources: Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue - Wikipedia · Along Martin Luther King (DCist, 2007) · The Anacostia Bank at 2021 Nichols Avenue (Ghosts of DC)

Pomeroy Road SEafter the 1867 survey

Honors: Samuel C. Pomeroy, U.S. senator from Kansas

Another Barry Farm street named for an ally of the freedpeople. Kansas Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy was one of three trustees, with General Howard and John R. Elvans, who held the Freedmen's Bureau money used to buy Barry's Farm and resell it as one-acre homesteads.

Source: Barry Farm - Wikipedia

The Big Chair (Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and V Street SE)1959

A 19-and-a-half-foot Duncan Phyfe-style dining chair that Bassett Furniture built in 1959 as an advertisement for Curtis Brothers Furniture, whose showroom stood at V Street and what was then Nichols Avenue. Charles Curtis thought it up. The store closed in 1973; an aluminum replica replaced the mahogany original in 2006.

Sources: Chair (sculpture) - Wikipedia · The Big Chair in Anacostia: Lynn Arnold's 42 Days in a Glass House (Ghosts of DC) · 10 Facts You May Not Know About Anacostia (DCist, 2017)

Still looking for a reliable source on Bowen Road SE, Douglass Road SE, Elvans Road SE, Fendall Street SE, Hillsdale Place SE, James Banks Road SE, Maple View Place SE, Morris Road SE, Mount View Place SE, Sayles Place SE, Shannon Place SE, Sheridan Road SE, Stanton Road SE, Talbert Street SE. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.

• Raymond Henderson interview, 2018-07-02Raymond Henderson · 2018 · audio · remembers the 1950s, 1960s

  Born in 1948, Henderson spent most of his childhood in Anacostia, left high school in 1966 to join the Marines and fight in Vietnam, then enrolled at Federal City College, where he helped form the Black Leopards student group. He also discusses student journalism, a trip to Cuba, PTSD and addiction, and his career as a photographer.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · childhood, Vietnam War, Federal City College, student activism
• Daniel T. Brooking interview, 2024-11-13Daniel T. Brooking · 2024 · audio · remembers the 1950s

  The photographer and digital artist describes growing up in Anacostia and attending Anacostia High School as DC schools integrated, where art teacher Phillip Ratner shaped his path. He also talks about 33 years at the Agriculture Department, art classes at American University and Federal City College, and joining Black Artists of D.C.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · Anacostia High School, school integration, Black artists
• Arrington Dixon interview, 2017-11-19Arrington Dixon · 2017 · audio · remembers the 1940s, 1950s

  The former DC councilmember recalls growing up in Anacostia, segregation and discrimination, the church's place in his life, riding trolleys to McKinley High School, his brother's death, and moving to Lamond Riggs while at Howard University. Recorded for the Desegregation in Ward 4 project.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · segregation, church, streetcars, Ward 4 politics
• Kenneth Carroll interview, 2022-05-01Kenneth Carroll · 2022 · audio

  The poet talks about growing up, becoming a writer, and creating 8Rock, an arts space and open mic series based in Anacostia, plus his work with DC WritersCorps and the growth of a writers' community the archive calls unique to the city.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · 8Rock, poetry, open mic, WritersCorps
• Mildred Raby interview, 2023-10-10Mildred Raby · 2023 · audio · remembers the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

  Born in 1926, Raby moved to Anacostia in 1937 and soon into Barry Farm Dwellings, her community for roughly five decades. She recalls school and social life under segregation, local businesses, Campbell AME Church and her years as an educator there, before rising violence led her to move to Virginia in the 1980s.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · Barry Farm Dwellings, segregation, Campbell AME Church, teaching
• Helen Thompson interview, 2023-06-13Helen Thompson · 2023 · audio · remembers the 1940s, 1950s

  Thompson's family moved from Charlottesville to Barry Farm Dwellings in 1943. She describes the community built by neighbors, organizers and churchgoers, and helping integrate Anacostia High School, which she compares with what her own children later faced in Montgomery County schools.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · Barry Farm Dwellings, school integration, Anacostia High School
• Emory Foster interview, 2023-07-18Emory Foster · 2023 · audio · remembers the 1930s, 1940s

  Born on Sheridan Road in 1930 to parents from Anacostia, Foster recalls a Barry Farm childhood centered on the recreation center, church and local businesses, schools in three quadrants, and a working life that ran from Qualls Pharmacy to 39 years with the DC Recreation Department.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · Barry Farm, recreation center, local businesses
• Deborah Boston interview, 2023-07-25Deborah Boston · 2023 · audio · remembers the 1950s, 1960s

  Boston's family moved to Barry Farm Dwellings in 1957. She describes neighbors who shared what they had, 1950s youth life, school before and after desegregation, thriving local businesses, the toll eminent domain took on Barry Farm and Anacostia residents, and Campbell AME Church.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · Barry Farm Dwellings, school desegregation, eminent domain, Campbell AME Church
• Joyce Bond interview, 2023-08-08Joyce Bond · 2023 · audio · remembers the 1940s, 1950s

  Bond came to Barry Farm Dwellings in 1943 and grew up in a strict household run by her mother and aunt. She talks about Campbell AME Church and the love of singing it fostered, and segregated DC schools including Birney, Randall and Dunbar, before marrying and moving elsewhere in the city in 1953.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · Barry Farm Dwellings, Campbell AME Church, music, segregated schools
• Alyce Burke interview, 2023-06-27Alyce Burke · 2023 · audio · remembers the 1940s, 1950s

  Burke moved to Barry Farm from Virginia at age three. She recalls a childhood centered on the recreation center run by Florence Matthews and Stanley Anderson, local businesses and churches, segregated schools, and the income limits that made her family leave Barry Farm for 4th Street NE.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library (DC Oral History Collaborative) · Barry Farm, recreation center, segregated schools, public housing rules

Search the archives yourself: The People's Archive, DC Public Library · Historic Chevy Chase DC Oral History Archive · Humanities Truck Community Archive, American University · Tenleytown Historical Society · Boundary Stones (WETA) · Glover Park History: Oral History and Reminiscences · Cleveland Park Historical Society Oral Histories · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · hometown DC (DC History Center) · Hola Cultura: Adams Morgan History · Citizens Association of Georgetown · Peabody Room, Georgetown Neighborhood Library (DC Public Library) · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Archives: A Right to the City Exhibition Records · Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Mosaic Theater H Street Oral History Project · Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library · The Catholic University of America Archives · Bygone Brookland · Dig DC, DC Public Library · hometown DC (HumanitiesDC / Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) · Dig DC, DC Public Library's digital repository · A Right to the City exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · Palisades Community Association · Forest Hills Connection (neighborhood history series). Summaries are ours; the recordings and their rights stay with each archive.

• DC Historic Preservation Office, Historic Data on DC Buildings (HistoryQuest), CC BY 4.0
• Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Chronicling America, Library of Congress; public domain

History data refreshed Nov 1.