History

Mentions of Kingman Park in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Eastern High School", "Rosedale", "Benning road", "Maryland avenue northeast".

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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  Eastern High School · 1935Eastern High School students, Wash., D.C., 1935
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  Eastern High School · 1941Athletic equipment, Eastern High School, Washington, D.C. / National Photo Co.

Photographs from the Library of Congress (National Photo Company 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.

Benning Road NEby 1861

Honors: William Benning

Named for William Benning, who bought land in the area in the late 18th century and later acquired the toll bridge first built in 1805, according to a 1992 Washington Times piece that Wikipedia cites. Benning's Road appears on maps by 1861. Sources disagree on the date he bought the bridge.

Earlier: Benning's RoadSources: Benning Road - Wikipedia · Kingman Park - Wikipedia

Charles Young Elementary School1931

Honors: Charles E. Young, one of the first African American West Point graduates and the first Black U.S. national park superintendent

Construction began in January 1931 and the school opened that November. Browne Junior High, named for educator and civil rights advocate Hugh M. Browne, followed next door in 1932.

Sources: Kingman Park Historic District staff report with historic context (DC Historic Preservation Office) · Kingman Park - Wikipedia

Constitution Avenue NE1931

Formerly B Street. The name changed in 1931. The northeast segment here is narrower than the stretch through Northwest, 60 feet against 80.

Earlier: B StreetSources: Constitution Avenue - Wikipedia · Streets and highways of Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia

Gales Street NE

Honors: Joseph Gales, publisher of the National Intelligencer and mayor from 1827 to 1830

The National Portrait Gallery's Block by Block exhibit, as reported in Washingtonian, notes that Gales owned much of what is now Eckington, yet the street bearing his name is in Kingman Park, a couple of miles away.

Source: Do You Know Who Your DC Street Is Named After? (Washingtonian, 2021)

Isherwood Street NE

Merchant Robert Isherwood bought the old Cool Spring tract and lived there until he died in 1849; the land was then known as Isherwood or Gibson Spring. A later Rosedale and Isherwood subdivision covered 19th to 21st Streets. The city report does not explicitly tie the street to him.

Source: Kingman Park Historic District staff report with historic context (DC Historic Preservation Office)

Kingman Park1928

Honors: Brigadier General Dan Christie Kingman, head of the Army Corps of Engineers

Named for Kingman, as are nearby Kingman Lake and Island. Developer Charles Sager began building in 1927 and sold the first 40 houses, on 24th Street NE, in July 1928. It was the first D.C. neighborhood of single-family houses developed specifically for Black residents.

Sources: Kingman Park - Wikipedia · Kingman Park Historic District staff report with historic context (DC Historic Preservation Office)

Lincoln Park1867

Honors: Abraham Lincoln

L'Enfant set this square aside in his 1791 plan. A Civil War hospital stood here from 1862 to 1865. In 1867 Congress authorized the name Lincoln Square, the first public site to bear his name. Wikipedia counts it as Capitol Hill; the health planning map puts it here.

Earlier: Lincoln SquareSource: Lincoln Park (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia

North Carolina Avenue NE

Honors: State of North Carolina

Runs from E Street and New Jersey Avenue SE on Capitol Hill to 16th and C Streets in Kingman Park.

Source: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia

Oklahoma Avenue NE

Honors: State of Oklahoma

Runs from 21st Street to Benning Road along the east side of the historic neighborhood. Residents and the Kingman Park Civic Association fought a planned Oklahoma Avenue Metro station with a large parking lot, and in 1977 Metro canceled it.

Sources: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia · Kingman Park - Wikipedia

Rosedale Street NE

Rosedale was the name of the brick farmhouse near 15th and D Streets NE, begun by 1796 and torn down in 1912. The name carried over to the Rosedale and Isherwood subdivision, which predates Kingman Park, and to Rosedale Playground. The city report does not explicitly tie the street to it.

Source: Kingman Park Historic District staff report with historic context (DC Historic Preservation Office)

Spingarn High School1952

Honors: Joel Elias Spingarn, one of the first Jewish leaders of the NAACP

Founded in 1952 at 2500 Benning Road, the last segregated high school built in the District, according to Wikipedia. Spottswood Bolling, lead plaintiff in Bolling v. Sharpe, later studied here.

Sources: Kingman Park Historic District staff report with historic context (DC Historic Preservation Office) · Spingarn High School - Wikipedia

Tennessee Avenue NE

Honors: State of Tennessee

The counterpart to Kentucky Avenue, it begins at Lincoln Park and ends at 15th Street.

Source: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia

Still looking for a reliable source on Ames Place NE, Corbin Place NE, Duncan Place NE, Elliott Street NE, Emerald Street NE, Kramer Street NE, Warren Street NE. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.

• Joseph M. Benson, Sr. interview, 2022Joseph M. Benson, Sr. · 2022 · audio · remembers the 1950s, 1960s

  Benson moved from South Carolina in 1952. He talks about attending Spingarn High School, finding work, buying a home and raising a family, studying horticulture, his neighborhood in Kingman Park, and advances for the Black community in D.C. since the 1960s.

  At Dig DC, DC Public Library · Great Migration, Spingarn High School, horticulture, Kingman Park
• Mariana and Elias SouriMariana Souri, Elias Souri · 2002 · transcript · remembers the 1940s, 1950s

  Brother and sister who grew up on Lincoln Park with their parents and grandparents, in the house where they still lived in 2002. Their memories center on a close-knit Arabic family and the neighborhood changes that came with school integration at Hine Junior High.

  At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Lincoln Park, Arabic family, Hine Junior High, school integration
• Minnie Lee WhiteMinnie Lee White · 1974 · transcript · remembers the 1930s

  A two-page summary, not a recording. Hazel Kreinheder wrote up her 1974 talk with White, who had lived since 1932 on Massachusetts Avenue SE near Lincoln Park. It includes a story about the Capitol Hill resident who sculpted a statue of suffragists for the Capitol.

  At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Massachusetts Avenue SE, Lincoln Park
• Lloyd ThompsonLloyd Thompson · 2004 · transcript · remembers the 1950s, 1960s

  Thompson grew up on the 1300 block of East Capitol Street after what he calls urban removal pushed his family out of Southwest in the mid-1950s. He names families on the block, businesses, churches, theaters, old streetcar lines and buses, and later work as a cowboy out West.

  At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · East Capitol Street, urban renewal, streetcars, churches
• Herbert P. Ramsey, M.D.Herbert P. Ramsey · 1977 · transcript · remembers the 1900s, 1910s

  Ramsey, Eastern High School class of 1912, kept a large file on early alumni for the school's reunions. Most of this interview with Hazel Kreinheder is his memory of those students, where they lived and who their families were. He also describes his medical career.

  At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Eastern High School, alumni, medicine
• Sah BrownSah Brown · transcript · remembers the 2010s, 2020s

  Brown was principal of Eastern High School for six years from 2016. He talks about his route into education after college basketball and the NBA minor leagues, and about Eastern's history and supportive community.

  At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Eastern High School, principals, education

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.