History

Mentions of Woodley Park in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Woodley Park", "Connecticut avenue bridge", "Zoological Park", "Woodley road", "Wardman Park".

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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  Woodley, 3000 Cathedral Avenue · after 1933Woodley, 3000 Cathedral Avenue, Washington, District of Columbia, DC
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  Wardman Park Inn · 1922 April 2[Aerial view of Wardman Park Inn, Washington, D.C.]
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  Connecticut Avenue (Taft) Bridge · [between 1905 and 1920][Connecticut Avenue (Taft) Bridge, Washington, D.C.]
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  Rock Creek, Zoo park · c1906Rock Creek, Zoo park [National Zoological Park], Washington, D.C.
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  Zoo · 1916ZOO, WASHINGTON, D.C.: BEARS
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  Zoo · [between 1918 and 1920]Polar Bear, zoo

Photographs from the Library of Congress (Historic American Buildings Survey; National Photo Company Collection; Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection; Harris & Ewing photograph collection), 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.

Calvert Street NW

The Rock Creek Railway crossed the valley here on an iron truss trestle, carrying streetcars from 1892 toward Connecticut Avenue and Chevy Chase. Commercial zoning came to the stretch west of Connecticut first. No source we read says which Calvert this stretch honors.

Sources: Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office) · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 2 (Woodley Park Community Association)

Cathedral Avenue NW

Its stretch toward the Maret School follows the old Woodley Lane. Woodley House stands in the 3000 block. Builders Middaugh and Shannon started townhouses along the avenue in 1908, and the Woodley Park Community Association's history calls it one of the earliest established streets.

Earlier: Woodley LaneSources: Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office) · How Woodley Park Got Its Name (Ghosts of DC, 2015) · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 1 (Woodley Park Community Association) · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 3 (Woodley Park Community Association)

Connecticut Avenue NW

Honors: State of Connecticut

Francis Newlands's Chevy Chase Land Company extended it north of Rock Creek as the spine of its new suburb, after Frederick Law Olmsted advised treating it as a river with side streets as tributaries. Woodley Park's shops along it date mostly from the 1930s.

Sources: Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 1 (Woodley Park Community Association) · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 2 (Woodley Park Community Association) · Connecticut Avenue - Wikipedia

Duke Ellington Bridge1974

Honors: Duke Ellington, jazz pianist and composer

Carries Calvert Street over Rock Creek. Completed in 1935 as the Calvert Street Bridge, replacing the earlier trestle, it was renamed for Ellington in 1974 according to a Washington Post report cited on Wikipedia.

Earlier: Calvert Street BridgeSources: Duke Ellington Bridge - Wikipedia · Whitney Young Memorial Bridge - Wikipedia (cites Washington Post, Dec. 12, 1974)

Garfield Street NW

The Woodley Park Community Association's history says the first row of houses in the 1905-1910 building wave stood on what it calls Garfield Place, and Harry Wardman later built modest brick rowhouses on the street. No source we read explains the name.

Sources: Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 1 (Woodley Park Community Association) · Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office)

Klingle Road NW

Honors: Joshua Pierce Klingle, nephew of mill owner Joshua Pierce

A public road from 1839, first known as Klingle Ford Road and Klingle's Road. It follows the Klingle Valley, which Connecticut Avenue crosses by bridge. Klingle sold a large part of his land in 1891.

Earlier: Klingle Ford Road, Klingle's RoadSources: Klingle Road - Wikipedia · Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office)

National Zoo1889

The Smithsonian's National Zoological Park opened in 1889 on land along Rock Creek at what is now 3001 Connecticut Avenue. Early streetcar riders on Connecticut Avenue came to reach it and Rock Creek Park, according to the historic district brochure.

Sources: National Zoological Park (United States) - Wikipedia · Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office)

Taft Bridge1931

Honors: William Howard Taft, president and chief justice, who often walked it

Built from 1897 to 1907 to carry Connecticut Avenue over Rock Creek, joining Woodley Park and Kalorama. Its cost earned it the nickname The Million Dollar Bridge. It was named for Taft in 1931.

Earlier: Connecticut Avenue BridgeSources: Taft Bridge - Wikipedia · Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office) · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 1 (Woodley Park Community Association)

Wardman Tower1917

Honors: Harry Wardman, developer

Wardman began the Wardman Park Hotel in 1917 at Connecticut Avenue and Woodley Road; critics dubbed it Wardman's Folly. It was later the Sheraton-Park. The main hotel was demolished, but the Tower, or Annex, remains and has housed presidents, members of Congress and chief justices.

Earlier: Wardman Park Hotel, Sheraton-Park HotelSources: Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office) · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 2 (Woodley Park Community Association) · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, ch. 3 (Woodley Park Community Association) · Woodley Park Community Association newsletter, Fall 2011

Woodley Parkby 1888

Honors: Woodley, the house Philip Barton Key built in 1801

Key, uncle of Francis Scott Key, named his house after Woodley in Berkshire, England, by Ghosts of DC's account. The house survives at the Maret School. Mrs. A. E. Kervand recorded a subdivision called Woodley in 1875; by 1888 investors Thomas Waggaman and John Ridout had renamed it Woodley Park.

Sources: How Woodley Park Got Its Name (Ghosts of DC, 2015) · Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office) · Behind the Name(s): Woodley Park and Cleveland Park (DCist, 2012) · From Woodley to Woodley Park (HMdb)

Woodley Road NW

Part of the old Woodley Lane, the area's main route until Connecticut Avenue came through. An 1887 description called it a country road crossing the creek on a wooden bridge. It roughly followed today's 24th Street, Woodley Road, 29th Street and Cathedral Avenue.

Earlier: Woodley LaneSources: Woodley Park Historic District brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office) · From Woodley to Woodley Park (HMdb)

Still looking for a reliable source on Garfield Terrace NW, McGill Terrace NW, Normanstone Drive NW, Shoreham Drive NW, Whitehaven Street NW. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.

• Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, chapter 21993 · article · remembers the 1930s, 1940s

  A community association history that quotes residents it interviewed in the early 1990s. One recalls telephoning the Connecticut Avenue grocer for delivery in the 1930s. Another remembers 1940s teenagers crawling under the Swiss embassy fence to build a sledding run.

  At Woodley Park Community Association · Connecticut Avenue shops, embassies, sledding
• Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past, chapter 31992 · article · remembers the 1950s, 1960s

  Quotes a former Shoreham manager on $6 rooms and a hotel run like a self-contained village with its own bakery, and a resident's memory of the delicatessen counter and summer dancing on the Shoreham terrace. Its interview notes date from 1992, and Oyster School students took part in one.

  At Woodley Park Community Association · Shoreham Hotel, Connecticut Avenue, St. Thomas Apostle

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) · Foggy Bottom Association History Project: Oral Histories · George Washington University Special Collections Research Center · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past · Empower DC: Ivy City · Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience (Dig DC) · Gallaudet University Archives. 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 2.