A Crossroads, Then and Today

A Crossroads, Then and Today. Civil War Defenses of Washington. , Have you thought about the people who have walked down Wisconsin Avenue before? Not just yesterday, or last year, but one hundred years ago, or four hundred?, This sidewalk may simply be on your way to shopping or the path you take to the Metro, but the path it follows is ancient. The buses of Wisconsin Avenue follow their routes up the same ridgeline that Piscataway traders took as they carried goods from the Potomac, participating in an exchange that reached Canada. When Europeans arrived, tobacco, fertilizer, and enslaved people traversed the same ground. Stage coaches, soldiers, streetcars, and automobiles came in the years that followed. It can be hard to see the traces of the past in the busy streets, but take a minute to think about why you are here, in Tenleytown., In the 1780s, siblings John and Sarah Tennally opened a tavern where the road that is now Wisconsin Avenue crested its ridgeline and forked. This rest stop grew into the community that is commemorated in the nearby mural: Tenleytown. At first, the village was a center of rural life. The arrival of streetcars in the 1890s turned it into neighborhood of Washington. In the 1900s, the government built a firehouse, and schools like Janney, Murch, and Jackson-Reed., Tenleytown is home to D.C.'s highest point: a hill that rises 409 feet above sea level. During the Civil War, the Union's Fort Reno guarded the capital from this vantage point. When the soldiers left, mixed-race community called Reno grew up on the site. Beginning in the 1920s, this town was cleared by segregationists to make room for Fort Reno Park, water towers, and the Alice Deal School. The Reno School was a cornerstone of this community and one of the few traces that survives., [Captions:] , This map depicts Wisconsin Avenue in 1859, just before the Civil War. Many places have changed, but others may be part of your daily routine., 1. This farm was called Oak Lawn. It is now Fort Reno Park. , 2. This house is now behind American University's law school. , 3. This house, now located on 39th Street, is the oldest in Tenleytown. , 4. This house is now part of Sidwell Friends School. , 5. St. Alban's Church still stands in front of the National Cathedral. , 6. Both free and enslaved people are still buried in Holy Rood Cemetery. , 7. This reservoir is now the Georgetown branch of the D.C. Public Library.