Rock Creek Park An Administrative History

Land Acquisition

The Rock Creek Park Commission met at the War Department on October 2, 1890, only five days after approval of the act creating it. Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Casey, Army chief of engineers, was elected chairman; the other members were Lt. Col. Henry M. Robert, engineer commissioner of the District of Columbia, Prof. Samuel P. Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Brig. Gen. Henry V. Boynton, and R. Ross Perry. Capt. William T. Rossell, assistant to the District engineer commissioner, served as the commission's executive officer (succeeded by Capt. Gustav J. Fiebeger in 1892). [1]

The park commissioners took to the field later that month to view their domain. They decided that the eastern boundary should follow the alignment of 16th Street above Blagden Mill Road and that the western boundary should run along Broad Branch Road and Daniel Road (present Oregon Avenue) to the District line. On November 7 they ordered the necessary survey of the proposed park and the tracts within it that would need to be acquired. The map and schedule of assessments were ready the following spring. Because the legislation required the President to approve all payments, the commissioners called upon Benjamin Harrison at the executive mansion on April 4, 1891, and obtained his concurrence in the land valuations. [2]

The map and assessments schedule were filed with the District Recorder of Deeds on April 16, at which time a circular letter was sent to landowners advising them of the action and offering to purchase at the appraised values. Very few were willing to accept the sums offered. The commission reached agreement with several owners to buy tracts at higher-than-appraised prices with President Harrison's approval after the attorney general advised that this was legal. For the remaining majority of tracts the District supreme court appointed an appraisement committee, as prescribed by the legislation. Its valuations, confirmed by the court, brought the total land costs to $1,430,000--$230,000 more than the available appropriation. [3]

Meanwhile, recalcitrant landowners contested the condemnation of their property as unconstitutional. The court ruled against them in July 1891. Some then found previously unsuspected values in their lands. Commissioner Perry told the commission on September 26 that "the gold bearing qualities of the rock in the tracts owned by Mr. Shoemaker and Mr. Truesdell had assumed important proportions." An appraisal by an expert from the United States Mint in Philadelphia was arranged. [4] The commission record is silent on his findings, which presumably were unfavorable to the claimants in view of the subsequent court-approved valuation.

The valuation in excess of the appropriation required that some of the lands selected for the park be omitted. After a restudy, the commission identified tracts near the District line and along 16th Street as least vital. On April 13, 1892, the President approved purchase of the remaining lands at the set prices. Payment was given the court, which on June 21 granted possession to the commission in the name of the United States. Through agreement and condemnation, the commission acquired 1,605.976 acres in all at a total cost of $1,174,511.45 including expenses. [5]

There remained the business of assessing neighboring landowners based on any increase in their property values from the park. The commissioners pursued this requirement of the legislation without great enthusiasm and in the face of further opposition and litigation by affected owners. Their final determination, reported to the court in December 1898, was that the park in its unimproved state had caused no appreciable increase in property values; thus no assessments were warranted. [6]

The Park's Managers

The negative report on neighboring land assessments concluded the role and active life of the Rock Creek Park Commission, which on December 13, 1894, had turned over the purchased lands to the Board of Control of Rock Creek Park. As prescribed in the legislation, the Board of Control represented the District of Columbia commissioners and the Army chief of engineers and was created to administer the park. The engineer commissioner of the District served on the board, as he did on the park commission, and his assistant engineer office (the executive officer of the park commission) became secretary to the board. In this capacity the assistant was immediately responsible for managing Rock Creek Park. Capt. Gustav J. Fiebeger held this position in 1894, making him--in fact if not name--the park's first superintendent. [7]

The commission had employed a watchman in the park early in 1892. J. J. Kramer, Rock Creek's first "man on the ground," submitted weekly written reports to Captain Fiebeger. A typical example, from June 6, 1892: "I find everything all right in the Park this week. There has been Picnics in the Park every day the past week. No damage done yet to the trees." After the park was shifted to the Board of Control, Kramer was replaced by a mounted member of the Metropolitan Police Force, who continued the weekly reporting to Fiebeger. [8]

In 1896 Fiebeger transferred to a professorship at the U.S. Military Academy and was succeeded by Capt. Lansing H. Beach. Beach remained secretary of the board after rising to the post of District engineer commissioner. His close involvement with Rock Creek Park was recognized by the board in 1901 when it named the principal park roadway for him. [9]

A civilian assistant to Beach, Lee R. Grabill, assumed operational responsibility for the park in 1907. Grabill doubled as superintendent of country roads in the District of Columbia, and by 1916 he was sometimes called superintendent of Rock Creek Park. [10]

The park remained under the Board of Control until 1918, when Congress made it and its Piney Branch Parkway adjunct part of the park system of the District of Columbia. On September 16 of that year the park was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds, which had managed the District park system since 1867. Its officer in charge, Col. Clarence S. Ridley, reported to the Army chief of engineers. [11] Grabill, attached to the office of the District engineer commissioner, was separated from the park, but his staff on the ground stayed. It was headed by Patrick Joyce, who had been appointed foreman in 1910, and then included three skilled laborers, a wagon boss, and nine unskilled hands.

Francis F. Gillen was the civilian superintendent of the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds under Ridley, his superintendency extending to areas beyond Rock Creek Park. In addition to overseeing Joyce and his force, Gillen supervised Smith Riley, a professional forester hired by the office in 1920. Gillen would playa leading park management role into the 1940s.

In March 1921 Lt. Col. Clarence O. Sherrill replaced Ridley as officer in charge. He held the post until February 1925, when an act of Congress abolished the Public Buildings and Grounds office under the Army chief of engineers and assigned its functions to the new Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks of the National Capital. Sherrill became director of the successor agency, in which capacity he now reported to the president. [12] He did so only for the rest of that year, retiring from the Army in December to become city manager of Cincinnati. Maj. Ulysses S. Grant III, grandson of the Civil War general and eighteenth president, took his place and held it nearly to the end of military administration of Washington's buildings and parks in 1933.

Road and Trail Construction

The first construction work within Rock Creek Park got underway in 1897. In the absence of appropriated funds, Captain Beach secured a chain gang to improve existing and abandoned roads through the park.

Congress did not appropriate money for park improvements until 1899, when a road along the creek from Blagden Mill north to Military Road was opened and macadamized at a cost of some $15,000. According to a later Board of Control report, heavy blasting and grading were required, but "[g]reat care was taken to do as little damage to the topography as possible outside of the limits of the road " During this project the standing stone walls of the dilapidated Blagden Mill were obliterated, to the regret of Louis P. Shoemaker, one of the major landowners whose property had been taken and an amateur historian of the valley. [13]

An old road from Klingle Road north to Pierce Mill Road along the east bank of the creek was also graded in 1899. Two years later an existing road along the west bank linking Pierce Mill with the segment running north from the Blagden Mill site was regraded, and it and the portion below Pierce Mill were macadamized. In 1900 the valley road was extended across Military Road to near the District line, but this northern-most section was not paved for some years. By a resolution of November 20, 1901, the Board of Control named the entire road along the creek Beach Drive in honor of its secretary. [14]

More often than not Beach Drive forded rather than bridged the creek. In 1902 the Board of Control constructed two attractive bridges, however. Boulder Bridge carried the road across Rock Creek upstream from the Blagden Mill site where the mill dam had been. Designed by w. J. Douglas and built for $17,636, the reinforced concrete arch was faced with large fieldstones gathered from outside the park. The bridge blended admirably with its surroundings and survives as an outstanding specimen of naturalistic "parkitecture." The other crossing, known as the Pebble Dash Bridge from its exposed aggregate facings, spanned Broad Branch at its juncture with Rock Creek. It stood until the mid-1960s, when a new pair of bridges replaced it and an adjoining ford across the main stream. [15]

The Board of Control saw to the construction of other roads during and after its completion of Beach Drive. Ridge Road, running from Beach Drive at the confluence of Broad Branch and Rock Creek north along the highlands between the two streams to Military Road, was laid out and macadamized between 1899 and 1901. It was later redesignated Glover Road for Charles Carroll Glover, one of the park's prime movers.

Another new road intersecting with it near its lower end also extended to Military Road along the eastern slope of the ridge. It was named for John W. Ross, president of the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners and president of the Board of Control, after his death in 1902. A timber bridge built in 1903 to carry Ross Drive over a Rock Creek tributary ravine was replaced in 1907 by a 168-foot span "significant for its early engineering distinction of being an open-spandrel concrete arch with no pretense at ornamentation other than its organic structural shape." (Ross Drive Bridge remains and was listed with Boulder Bridge in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.) Last of the roads built under Board of Control auspices was Morrow Drive, running from the juncture of Beach Drive and Military Road up the eastern slope of Rock Creek valley to 16th Street; it was named for Maj. Jay J. Morrow, a former secretary of the board and District engineer commissioner, in 1911. [16]

In addition to the roads, the Board of Control constructed or improved about 21 miles of bridle paths and four miles of footpaths by 1912. Most of the bridle paths followed old footpaths and hauling roads. [17]

Regulating Public Use

On April 29, 1895, before building any roads or taking other steps to facilitate public access, the Board of Control adopted the first regulations for use of Rock Creek Park. In doing so it was aided by copies of regulations requested from managers of large city parks in Brooklyn, Baltimore, and elsewhere.

The board forbade driving (carriages) or riding except on existing roads and bridle paths; driving or riding horses, bicycles, or tricycles more than 10 miles per hour, and coasting with the pedaled vehicles; discharging of firearms or fireworks; cutting or defacing vegetation and damaging structures; hunting, trapping, and fishing; fires; and overnight camping or "tarrying." There were to be no public assemblies by advertisement, except that group picnics could be scheduled with the board's permission. Livestock grazing and bathing were prohibited, but both were subsequently allowed under permit. Offenses were punishable by fines of from five to fifty dollars. [18]

In 1912 the speed limit for all vehicles was raised to 12 miles per hour, but no motor vehicle seating more than eight persons was allowed. The latter provision was waived for a private bus service arranged by the board: a bus left 18th Street and Columbia Road hourly, traversing the Zoological Park and Rock Creek Park via Beach Drive to Brightwood. The trip cost 10 cents each way, with around trip without stopover available for 15 cents. The board reported that the service had proved "very popular." [19]

Bathing was supposed to occur only where "secluded from the observation of persons passing along the public roads," but this proved difficult to enforce. An indignant citizen wrote the District engineer commissioner in 1913 to ask that bathers be kept from the park. "These boys and young men commit all kinds of nuisances, such as exposing their persons to passes by, profanity, in it's worst form, fighting, throwing stones...", the correspondent declared. "Ninety-five percent of this crowd is of the lowest or degenerate type, and the fact that they are permitted to bathe here without molestation, encourages the assembly of a tough element of ruffians that would never infest this park under any other conditions." Lee Grabill recommended to the Board of Control that bathing permits be ended, but the park continued to accommodate the activity in designated areas into the 1920s. [20]

In July 1922, with automobiles predominant among park users, the Public Buildings and Grounds office announced a rule against night parking in Rock Creek Park. There was widespread objection from the many persons and families who tried to cope with Washington's oppressive summer heat and humidity by parking and sleeping in the cooler valley. Colonel Sherrill retreated and instructed Army Capt. W.L. McMorris, superintendent of park police, "to use discretion in administering the order, which is aimed solely at persons parking at late hours of the night and early hours of the morning for immoral purposes...," according to the Evening Star newspaper. Readers were assured that the regulation had been designed only "to protect the law-abiding public from nuisance and young girls from waywardness." [21]

In keeping with local custom, developed picnic grounds in the park were racially segregated. A 1921 memorandum from Colonel Sherrill to Francis Gillen reaffirmed this policy and prescribed signs to distinguish the picnic areas as "white" and "colored." Rep. Martin B. Madden of Illinois, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, objected to the policy and succeeded in relaxing it. After Madden's death in 1928, U. S. Grant III as director of the Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks moved to revive picnic segregation. [22] It did not remain official policy, but the races customarily kept to themselves in this and other park activities.

Camp Good Will, Golf, and the Miller Cabin

Among the first park facilities was Camp Good Will, a summer camp for underprivileged white children accompanied by their mothers. Begun in 1904 by the Committee on the Prevention of Consumption, a local charity, it was sited between Milk House Ford and 16th Street. It was joined by the Baby Hospital Camp, for poor infants suffering from "summer complaint."

A public golf course was begun in the same general area in 1907 but was not completed. Foreman Patrick Joyce supervised construction of a new nine-hole course on the site between October 1921 and May 1923. This forced relocation of Camp Good Will to a six-acre site west of Rock Creek, north of the Civil War Fort DeRussy, in the summer of 1923. Washington architect Arthur B. Heaton contributed building designs and landscape architect John H. Small laid out the grounds for the new camp, now operated by the Summer Outings Committee of the Associated Charities. Civic clubs were solicited for construction funds, and an administration building, dining hall, nursery, two pavillions, two bathhouses, three dozen tent platforms, a pool, and ball fields were built. As it had previously, the camp served 150 mothers and children for two-week periods, with the attendees staying in tents. [23]

The new golf course was operated by Norman B. Frost and Harold D. Miller in 1923 and 1924, but the Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks judged their management unsatisfactory and declined to renew their concession contract. In 1925 the Joint Welfare Service, a War Department affiliate, operated the course and Public Buildings and Public Parks added another nine holes. A year later the concession went to the Park Amusement Company, which became the S. G. Leoffler Company in the mid-1930s and held the concession until 1982. [24]

In 1911 the Board of Control acquired an unwanted addition to the park. Joaquin Miller, a colorful California poet who affected rustic ways, had built a log cabin on 16th Street near the site to be developed as Meridian Hill Park. The California State Association sought to move it to Rock Creek Park. The board refused the request, but Sen. John D. Works of California intervened successfully on the association's behalf. [25] The cabin was placed near the east bank of Rock Creek north of Military Road and used as a shelter. After Miller's death in 1913 his family maintained ties to the cabin. In 1931 Public Buildings and Public Parks leased it to Pherne Miller, his niece, who conducted art classes and sold candy and soft drinks there until the mid-1950's.

Pierce Mill

Pierce Mill Pierce Mill, Rock Creek Park's most prominent historic feature, is situated on the west bank of Rock Creek a quarter mile below its confluence with Broad Branch. Built in the 1820s by Isaac Pierce and his son Abner, the granite structure is the only one standing of several mills on Rock Creek in the 19th century. The park commission acquired the mill property in 1892. The mill continued to grind corn and grain, until 1897, when its main shaft broke.

About 1905 the Board of Control permitted Mary Louise Noble to operate a tea house concession in the picturesque building, to which an enclosed frame porch was added on the upstream side. Florence I. Blake of the Dolly Madison Candy Company succeeded her a decade later, but the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds ousted Mrs. Blake in October 1919 for providing poor service and failing to pay her $60-per-month rent promptly. Hattie L. Sewell, a black woman, obtained the concession for $45 a month in 1920. Her presence prompted complaints from E. S. Newman, a prominent park neighbor and trustee of the Pierce-Shoemaker estate, who saw the place becoming "a rendezvous for colored people, soon developing into a nuisance." Colonel Sherrill told Newman that he had received no other complaints and that under Mrs. Sewell the tea room's service had been satisfactory and business had increased. [26]

Newman persisted. Doubtless as a result of his influence, Sherrill advised Mrs. Sewell that her contract would not be renewed in October 1921 and that the tea house would be turned over to the Joint Welfare Service, which would use the proceeds for charity. This arrangement had not been cleared with the Joint Welfare Service, which declined to take the concession. Sherrill then induced the Girl Scouts Association of the District of Columbia to fill the role. It began its service in November 1921, boosted by publicity from Public Buildings and Grounds. "A delightful air of hospitality will be found always in evidence at the tea house, as the management is directly under a large committee of ladies prominent in Washington society and there will be some one of these actively in charge each day," Sherrill announced in a press release. Among the specialties offered were "Harding waffles," honoring the incumbent president. The Girl Scouts Association was allowed to use the second floor of the mill as living rooms for the attendant in charge. [27]

Asked to justify for the record the absence of competition in selecting the new concessioner, Sherrill provided a statement at sharp variance with his initial reply to Newman:

Competition was not deemed advisable in letting this concession because of the fact that it would be impossible to select or obtain in that way the type of proprietors desired. The party who operated the tea house prior to this concession was the high bidder in a competition. A great many complaints were received and a large number of people stopped patronizing the place. In order to overcome the prejudice which had grown up it was thought best to select the proper party who would operate the establishment to the best interest of the public and of the government. [28]

For unrecorded reasons the Girl Scouts Association did not long continue to run the Pierce Mill tea house, and the Welfare and Recreational Association of Public Buildings and Grounds, Inc. (successor to the Joint Welfare Service), was persuaded to take charge. It held the concession until 1934, when the mill ceased to function as a tea house.

In 1919, the last year of Florence Blake's deteriorating operation, Colonel Ridley had instructed Horace W. Peaslee, an architect on the Public Buildings and Grounds staff, to investigate the possibility of restoring Pierce Mill in appearance if not function. Pierce submitted his report that November. He favored upgrading the structure as a restaurant featuring al fresco dining, with some old mill components replaced for atmosphere:

The restoration of the mill feature in part brings up the question as to whether or not it would be well to attempt, for the sake of historical record, to put back, without competing with the new function of the property, the essential parts of an old-time mill. Enough could be readily obtained or reconstructed to connect up the main working parts and the effect would be right, whether or not the wheels were continuously turning The first impression of the problem was not favorable to the attempted restoration of the mill-wheel as the last wheel used was an unpicturesque turbine, and the reconstruction of the preceding undershot wheel would leave it high and dry, fanning the air without any possible water-weathering or suggestion of a past. With detailed study, it is believed that the wheel could be restored if made apart of the proposed general restoration including necessarily a flume, race and spillway, partly following the old lines and partly conforming to and strengthening the new design. [29]

No action was taken on Peaslee's recommendations, nor was another proposal two years later adopted. Warren J. Brown, a local entrepreneur, then suggested to the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds and the Commission of Fine Arts (which reviewed the aesthetics of government projects), a fully operational restoration of Pierce Mill; he would run it and sell the ground meal. Charles Moore, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, responded by advocating the treatment Peaslee had recommended. Colonel Sherrill wrote Brown, "It seems to me that from a business standpoint it would be a most unprofitable undertaking for you, and could not fail in my opinion to detract from the attractiveness of it." [30] When the mill came under new management in the 1930s, however, Brown's vision would prevail.

Prominent Park Users

As the largest preserve in the nation's capital, Rock Creek Park would have its share of prominent visitors. Best remembered among them is Theodore Roosevelt.

"When our children were little, we were for several winters in Washington, and each Sunday afternoon the whole family spent in Rock Creek Park, which was then very real country indeed," Roosevelt recalled in his Autobiography. "I would drag one of the children's wagons; and when the very smallest pairs of feet grew tired of trudging bravely after us, or of racing on rapturous side trips after flowers and other treasures, the owners would clamber into the wagon." [31]

While in the White House I always tried to get a couple hours' exercise in the afternoons--sometimes tennis, more often riding, or else a rough cross-country walk, perhaps down Rock Creek... Often, especially in the winters and early springs, we would arrange for a point to point walk, not turning aside for anything--for instance, swimming Rock Creek or even the Potomac if it came in our way. Of course under such circumstances we had to arrange that our return to Washington should be when it was dark, so that our appearance would scandalize no one. On several occasions we thus swam Rock Creek in the early spring when the ice was floating thick upon it We liked Rock Creek for these walks because we could do so much scrambling and climbing along the cliffs Once I invited an entire class of officers who were attending lectures at the War College to come on one of these walks; I chose a route which gave us the hardest climbing along the rocks and the deepest crossings of the creek; and my army friends enjoyed it hugely--being the right sort, to a man. [32]

Another high official park user during Roosevelt's administration was Adm. George Dewey of Manila Bay fame. A cool man under fire, Admiral Dewey once suffered such fright in the park that he wrote Col. John Biddle, District engineer commissioner, about it:

There came very near being a vacancy in the Admiral's grade yesterday. I was driving in Rock Creek Park, near the Military Road, having just turned at that Road and started back, when a large tree, which I had passed a minute before, fell not a hundred feet in front of met directly across the road, breaking into three pieces. I think in ten seconds more I would have been under it! This causes me to mention to you that in my drives through the park I have noticed a number of trees along the banks, as well as some along the Military Road, leaning badly and looking as though they were liable to fall.

Capt. Jay J. Morrow, acting for Biddle, assured the admiral that dangerous trees would be removed. [33]

Woodrow Wilson enjoyed drives and walks in Rock Creek Park during his presidency. In September 1915 he was courting Edith Boiling Galt, who would become his second wife. His driver would take them to a point on Ross Drive, let them walk alone in the woods, and pick them up at a point further along the road. [34]

After World War I the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds undertook to remove numerous dead trees, mostly blighted chestnut. Hundreds were sold to private cutters for telephone and telegraph poles. President Wilson was disturbed. "[C]ouldn't you give the trees in Rock Creek Park a vacation?" he wrote Colonel Ridley in April 1920. "I have been distressed by the number I have seen cut down there." Ridley answered that the only trees being cut were already dead and that the work was being done ''as a necessary part of the park preservation" in accordance with a 1918 report by the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm. [35]

Wilson was unpersuaded. "I do not profess to be a forester, but the great majority of trees that I have noticed laying prostrate in the park are certainly sound," he replied. "1 know a sound tree when I see it inside the bark. Moreover, in one part of the park a whole plantation of young pines...have been cut down and it made my heart ache to see it." Ridley sent this message to Superintendent Gillen with orders to cease cutting any more trees, large or small, dead or alive, until further notice. Gillen responded that the cut pines were outside the park boundary, and Ridley so informed the president. [36]

Wilson maintained his interest in the park after he left office in March 1921 and moved to a house on S Street. That June, upset about news of the forthcoming golf course construction, he wrote Colonel Sherrill:

Is it possible that it is true that a golf course is to be laid out in Rock Creek Park? I am loath to believe that such an unforgivable piece of vandalism is even in contemplation, and therefore beg leave to enter my earnest and emphatic protest. That park is the most beautiful thing in the United States, and to mar its natural beauty for the sake of a sport would be to do an irretrievable thing which subsequent criticism and regret would never repair.

Sherrill replied evasively, suggesting that the tract under consideration was suited to the purpose but claiming that no definite steps had been taken other than to determine the public's wishes in the matter. The golf course construction began that October, as planned. [37]

A memorial in Rock Creek Park honors another prominent park user of the period: Jules Jusserand, French ambassador to the United States from 1903 to 1925. Jusserand was close to Theodore Roosevelt and often accompanied the president on his romps through the park. Congress authorized the memorial in June 1935, the Fine Arts Commission approved Joseph Freedlander's design for a granite bench a year later, the Jusserand Memorial Committee raised the necessary funds, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the completed memorial on November 7, 1936. Placement of the memorial in the park, overlooking Beach Drive and the creek a short distance south of Pierce Mill, worried Rock Creek's National Park Service managers at the time: they feared it would constitute a precedent for further memorial intrusions in the natural setting. But the Jusserand bench remained the sole commemorative feature in the park. [38]

External Pressures and Unnatural Presences

A natural preserve surrounded by advancing urban and suburban development would inevitably face threats to its integrity. On the whole, Rock Creek Park was ably defended by its military custodians from adverse external pressures and encroachments.

The first major threat of encroachment was an 1897 proposal by the District of Columbia Water Department to construct a reservoir in the park. Finding the proposal objectionable, the Board of Control referred it to Attorney General Joseph McKenna for an opinion that it hoped would buttress its position. McKenna did not disappoint, replying that under the Rock Creek Park legislation the board was precluded from permitting any such development foreign to the stated park purposes. [39]

The reservoir proponents thereupon drafted new legislation to authorize their objective. They contended that the reservoir would be an attractive addition to the park. Faced with likely enactment of the authorization, the Board of Control negotiated a happy compromise. The park boundary in the vicinity of the desired reservoir site, north of Blagden Avenue and west of 16th Street, was uneven. If the Water Department would purchase certain tracts, the board would exchange an equal or lesser amount of parkland for them so as to leave the department with an adequate reservoir site and the park with a straightened boundary.

Authorization for this bargain was incorporated in an act or Congress approved June 6, 1900, which resulted in construction of the Brightwood Reservoir and net enlargement of Rock Creek Park by seven square feet. [40] (The reservoir became obsolete in the 1930s, and its site is now occupied by tennis courts and ball fields.)

In January 1898 Rep. Alfred C. Harmer of Pennsylvania and Sen. Francis M. Cockrell of Missouri introduced bills that would authorize each state to erect in the park an exhibition building for "any and all articles or things connected with its natural or industrial resources or evidencing its social, scientific, or artistic progress and development." The states would be given from one to six acres apiece for their buildings. [41] The office of the District commissioners recommended against passage, stating that the development would conflict with the intended park purposes. The scheme did not threaten further.

In 1911 the United States Forest Service obtained permission to plant trees for experimental purposes north, south, and east of Camp Good Will. The Board of Control asked that the trees be set in irregular patterns to avoid the appearance of artificial cultivation. Several species of willow and a few poplars were installed the next spring. By 1920 the Forest Service had planted about 2000 trees comprising 170 species and planned to continue plantings from all parts of the world. [42]

The Forest Service and other parties supporting this venture hoped to expand and formalize it, with congressional approval, as the National Arboretum and Botanic Garden. The Fine Arts Commission thought otherwise. A 1917 report prepared by its landscape architect member, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., declared the project incompatible with the natural qualities for which Congress had established Rock Creek Park. "It does not now, and it never will, look like a part of the natural scenery," the report said of the existing arboretum. "It is distinctly out of harmony with it." Olmsted repeated his stand in his report prepared for the park's managers a year later. As a result, the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds in 1920 disapproved further extension of the arboretum. [43]

The office continued its own planting of certain exotic vegetation including Japanese honeysuckle to stabilize embankments from erosion. In May 1920 Charles Moore of the Fine Arts Commission wrote Colonel Ridley to warn of the spreading, destructive nature of the plant: "It will kill anything but the largest trees, and unless pains are taken to keep it down, for it cannot be exterminated, it will ruin Rock Creek Park." At the same time Moore called Ridley's attention to the problem of people carrying dogwood and other flowering plants from the park. [44]

The Board of Control was also willing to allow introduction of non-native birds to the park. According to its 1912 report:

Through the subscription of private individuals and at the suggestion of Dr. Cecil French, D.V.S, some wild ducks, wild geese, and black, white, and gray swan, were presented last fall to the park and are generally prospering. A few have disappeared and there does not seem to be much mating. Some English and golden pheasants were also presented, but were almost all killed by some unknown animal. [45]

The board spent $164.51 during fiscal years 1907-1909 for feed for wildfowl. It was less hospitable to certain other exotic animals, however. In 1911 it reprimanded the Chevy Chase Club, an exclusive country club nearby in Maryland, for fox-hunting with a pack of hounds through the park. [46]

Park Planners and Plans

At the turn of the century the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, chaired by Sen. James McMillan of Michigan, sponsored a study of Washington's parks. The McMillan Commission, as it was known, consisted of four prominent civic artists: architects Daniel H. Burnham and Charles F. McKim, sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. Their report, The Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia, was edited by Charles Moore and published in 1902. With the strong advocacy of the Commission of Fine Arts, established in 1910 with Burnham, Olmsted, and Moore as initial members, the report had great influence on the later development and expansion of parklands in and around the city.

Rock Creek Park, the commission found, was among the areas needing improvement: "This territory, beautified by nature, is undeveloped, save for a few roads, the location of which was obvious; and before the public can fully realize the advantages of the purchase Rock Creek Park must be improved according to a systematic plan prepared by landscape architects." [47]

The report cautioned against enlarging the park's major artery, Beach Drive:

Narrow as the present road is, and skillfully as it was built, there are several points where it has very appreciably injured the scenery, and to widen it by any considerable amount would be a calamity. It is true that the value of the park scenery depends absolutely on making it conveniently accessible to the people, but nothing can be gained if the means of access destroys the scenery which it is meant to exhibit, and we believe that as wide a road as the future population is likely to demand would injure the character of the valley irremediably. Possibly the solution is to be found in the ultimate construction of another and wilder drive, or drives, high enough on the valley sides to leave the wild sylvan character of the stream at the bottom of the gorge uninjured, but yet within site and sound of the water and seeming to be of the valley. Such a road would doubtless require more grading, would cost more, and would destroy more trees and more square yards of pretty under-growth than a road at the bottom of the gorge, but the damage of the latter would be done at the vital spot. It would be the pound of flesh from nearest the heart, while the former would compare with the amputation of a leg. [48]

The commission recommended six additional land purchases totaling 303 acres to prevent overlooking crests from being developed and to take the park up to boundary streets separating it from adjacent property. It also advocated western extensions along the Soapstone Branch and Broad Branch tributaries, in the latter case to Fort Reno. [49]

Whereas the McMillan Commission only touched upon Rock Creek Park, being more concerned with the monumental city core, the Olmsted Brothers report ordered by the Board of Control in 1917 focused on its development and expansion. The Olmsted Report was completed in December 1918. [50] Its tone was set by its opening sentence: "The dominant consideration, never to be subordinated to any other purpose in dealing with Rock Creek Park, is the permanent preservation of its wonderful natural beauty, and the making of that beauty accessible to the people without spoiling the scenery in the process."

The report spoke of the park's two kinds of scenery--the larger landscape pictures and the intimate details:

These two sorts of scenery are not peculiar to Rock Creek Park, but in this beautiful valley with its many ramifications they are found in a high degree of perfection and in almost unlimited variety. It is the extraordinary combination of this circumstance with the proximity of the valley to a great city that gives to the Park its unique value. This is the value which was first preserved by Act of Congress for the benefit of all people. It is now and always will be the only value that can justify the maintenance of this great natural park.

The approach taken by Olmsted Brothers was to divide the park into defined landscape units, based on the vegetation that should prevail in each, and recommend measures for their enhancement and maintenance. Artificial development should in all cases be unobtrusive. Structures "should be so designed and located as to fall naturally into place as part and parcel of the scenery, and should never stand out as objects complete in themselves with the surrounding landscape becoming merely a background." Roads and trails "should always and unmistakably fit into the landscape as harmonious and subordinate parts of the scenery through which they pass." The report urged higher appropriations for park maintenance and development of a trained work force directed by "a man with a thorough knowledge of plants and forestry and above all with a keen artistic appreciation of the aims and possibilities of the work".

Accompanying the report were graphic renditions of recommended land additions, the landscape units, a system of park drives, and two proposed thoroughfares across the park (from Yuma Street on the west to Taylor Street on the east and from Utah Avenue on the west to Madison Street on the east). Land acquisition should receive priority, the report stated, especially on the west side from Pierce Mill north along Broad Branch nearly to Military Road, on each side of the narrow parkland strip then following the eastern tributary of Piney Branch, and at the northeast corner of the park.

The Olmsted Report was approved by the Fine Arts Commission, and in February 1919 Colonel Ridley announced its adoption by his office. "Nothing will be done hereafter in this park which is contrary to the letter or spirit of this report without specific approval in writing of the Officer in Charge of Public Buildings and Grounds," he ordered. At the same time he appointed a Rock Creek Park Board within the office "to assist the Officer in Charge in carrying out this development in a logical, continuous, and artistic manner." He detailed to the board two landscape architects on his staff: James D. Langdon (who had aided the McMillan Commission) and Irving W. Payne. They were to study the Olmsted Report, recommend on its implementation, and inspect and report on the work done. In the process they were to "consult freely with the landscape member of the Commission of Fine Arts taking every opportunity to present to him on the ground important details of work proposed." [51].

The landscape member of the Fine Arts Commission was James L. Greenleaf of New York, who succeeded Frederlick Law Olmsted, Jr., in 1918. At the commission's request, Greenleaf wrote Ridley at length with his comments and elaboration on the Olmsted Report. [52] He began by remarking on the perennial tension between preservation and use:

The Report declares the "dominant motives" of the Park to be to preserve its natural character of wooded valley and upland and open meadow, and to make it accessible to the public with the least, injury to this natural beauty. The two motives are inevitably opposed in any naturalistic park and increasingly so in proportion as a large city grows about it. Yet they must be balanced and adjusted, and this basic problem of adjusting artistic values and utility will arise continually in a thousand different places... Features of utility are necessary that the Park may be of use, but always there must be dominant a clear appreciation of its natural charm and a determination that it shall not be sacrificed. A recognition of this is vital to the preservation of values in Rock Creek Park.

"The rectifying of boundaries is an important matter and the Report rightly urges immediate attention to this before real estate values make the problem more difficult," Greenleaf continued. "The scenery is not panoramic, but instead the views are now chiefly those of woodland valley, bordered by hills wooded to the skyline. How unfortunate if this foliage skyline be replaced by obtrusive rows of buildings, gaping down into the Park...."

Of artificial structures in the park Greenleaf wrote:

All are inroads upon the natural scenery, more or less necessary it is true and therefore more or less justifiable, but to be handled with great caution and restraint. The advice given is to hold all structures down to simple forms, easily assimilated by the rustic scenery. This is to be commended if the idea be not carried too far. Designs made so rustic as to be a straining for that effect are unsatisfactory. A needed building, for instance, should not be obtrusive in its style of architecture but on the other hand, it should not be wildly rustic in a vain attempt to blend with woodland scenery Over all stands this general policy: limit artificial structures and keep them simple.

Greenleaf reluctantly accepted picnic grounds in Rock Creek Park but urged a strong stand against auto camping:

The Report recognizes the inevitable demand upon the Park Management for utilities when it suggests picnic groves at suitable places. If carefully policed such are not serious blemishes in the woodland and valley scenery, but frankly, they are danger spots in the higher development of the Park and should be firmly controlled Right now...comes the request from the Board of Trade for motor parking grounds in the Park where visitors by motor to the city can camp inexpensively while they are exploring the political centre of the United States. The park is for the public and open spaces in it are cheap. What more plausible? Need we state the serious objection to this proposal? Even in great parks like the Yellowstone such parking and camping places are necessary evils, that grate upon one's sensibilities. In the narrow, charming river valley of Rock Creek Park they would be an unmitigated, vulgar intrusion upon its sylvan beauty. If parking places for this laudable purpose are to be provided let the city take unused land that is not vital to scenic efforts. and so develop it. The valley of Rock Creek must be held inviolate.

Greenleaf's discourse to Ridley on the Olmsted Report reflected his concern that the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds was unequal to the task of implementing it. "Col. Ridley has difficulties of organization and daily administration," he confided to commission chairman Charles Moore. "My fear is that the valuable ideas the Olmsted Report gives shall never bear fruit under the deadening influence of daily routine." [53]

Moore was also inclined to criticism of the park's management under Ridley's office. In a letter to Olmsted in December 1921 he wrote, "It seems to me the park has been rather neglected in various ways, and the Commission wants to give the park particular attention during the next year." [54]

The following March Greenleaf expressed the commissions sense in a letter to Ridley's successor, Colonel Sherrill. "There can be no doubt that serious damage is occurring and this damage can be checked solely by intelligent and thorough handling," he wrote, calling for prompt suppression of weed growth. "There is a hill-side at a western entrance to Rock Creek Park which, with its cedars rising against the sky was reminiscent of an Italian hill-side. When I saw it three years ago, these cedars were shrieking under the throttling grasp of wild honey-suckle and tree weeds. Now as one passes he hears only a smothered moan. I call that hill-side 'The Tragedy of the Cedars.'" He urged Sherrill to study the Olmsted Report on this and other matters: "Its words as to a permanent trained force, and control by a man of imagination and artistic feeling and training withal, are as apples of gold in a silver dish." [55]

Sherrill did not take kindly to Greenleaf's implications of mismanagement and neglect. "The line of procedure indicated in your letter has been consistently followed for many years, and the report of Mr. Olmsted, with which I am entirely familiar, has been of the greatest service in administering the park...," he retorted. "There is no lack of a trained force, or of control of a man of imagination and artistic feeling in handling the matters connected with Rock Creek Park. The only difficulty is, and has been, that appropriations adequate to accomplish all the necessary work cannot be secured for the purpose." Nevertheless, he wrote, an expert forester recommended by the Forest Service had been employed by his office in the park for the past year and had accomplished much recommended by Olmsted. Sixty percent of the dead chestnuts had been removed and their areas replayed with more than 25,000 seedling trees. 50 acres north of Milk House Ford had been cleared of weed growth, and three acres around Fort DeRussy had been cleared of shrub pine to free the cedars. "In view of the above," Sherrill concluded, "I am sure you will agree that the administration of Rock Creek Park is not devoid of intelligence as intimated in your letter." [56]

Greenleaf hastened to assure Sherrill that he had meant no personal criticism and appreciated the work done. But criticism of Rock Creek Park's management continued. It would be repeated by professional representatives of the bureau succeeding the park's military government, the National Park Service, a dozen years later. [57]

Rustic Signs at Beach Drive and Military Road (1931)