Your House in Bloomingdale Might Have Once Been the Site of a Huge Greenhouse

The "Glorious Square 519"

Surrounded by R Street, 3rd and 4th Streets, and Florida Avenue, NW

             Long before the house at 319 R Street NW (below) was built between 1902 and 1903 by Harry Wardman and designed by Nicholas R. Grimm, an older brick house occupied the exact same location. It was constructed before the requirement of a building permit, which was necessitated by the City of Washington beginning in February of 1877. Utilizing a combination of maps, tax assessments, geneology and deed research, however, it has been determined that the house had been built about 1850.  Located outside the city at the time, it had no address, but eventually became known as 317 R Street. 

            It was built and owned by George Glorious, as was the entire Square 519.  As one can see on the 1887 Hopkins Map, illustrated above, Glorious operated a large scale greenhouse where he grew flowers for resale.  Early listings for his business reveal that it was located at what was then known as 316 Boundary Street (Florida Avenue today), with retail locations at 1112 7^th Street, NW and at stall number 247 at the Center Market (right).  It was located where the National Archives building stands today on Constitution Avenue, NW.          

            According to the 1870 census, which was taken at 317 R Street, George had been born in Prussia (Germany) in November of 1821.  He moved to Washington, DC in 1846 and shortly thereafter, established his floral business.  His wife Mary had been born in Bavaria (Germany) in April of 1824.  Together, they had five children that included Mary (born 1852), Andrew (born 1854), George Jr. (born 1856), Barbara (born 181858), and Ignatius (born 1865).   Glorious indicated that his real estate was then valued at $70,000, a tremendous sum at the time.  His personal property was then valued at $500.  Both sons Andrew and George indicated that they worked in the family business as gardeners. 

            

             The Glorious business was included in an 1884 publication titled Historical and Commercial Sketches of Washington and Environs, seen at left.  Glorious had established the business about the same time he came to Washington, DC, about 1846 at the age of 24.  His specialty was roses, but apparently conveyed all varieties of cut flowers and plants.

            The 1880 census taken at 317 R Street revealed that all the children remained at the house that year, all unmarried, and most of whom worked for the family business.  Son George was married and had his own son named George by 1884.  Eleven years later, the Washington Post reported that the young boy had been seriously injured when he fell off an awning pole at the house on August 15, 1895. 

            The 1900 census taken at 317 R Street lists only George, Mary, and their daughter residing at the house.  However, the family stayed close by – daughter-in-law Elizabeth and her two children resided at 320 Florida Avenue, and son George resided with his wife Anna and their five children at 316 Florida Avenue, NW. 

            With the city rapidly developing and expanding, the George Glorious decided to sell Square 519 to developer Harry Wardman.  The sale was announced in the November 1, 1902 edition of the Evening Star newspaper who reported it as “Glorious Square.”  The sale price was $35,500.  Glorious, however, wisely negotiated Wardman building a house for himself on the location of his former home, now known as 319 R Street, NW, where the family remained for many years.  Other houses in the development were also built for members of the second generation of Glorious family members. 

      319 R Street, NW (right) is currently being renovated (2018). 

Copyright Paul K. Williams

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[1] Building permits in Washington were not required until 1872, and not archived until 1877.  Permit No. 1 was issued to Martin McMalty on February 17, 1877 for a $50 repair to his house on H Street on Capitol Hill.  The first house issued a building permit occurred on the same day, when Thomas Henry was awarded Permit No. 2 for his $15,000 house to be built at 916 6^th Street, NW.

The McMillian Sand Filtration Reservoir

           

The McMillan Reservoir Sand Filtration Site, bounded by Michigan Avenue, North Capitol, Channing and First Streets, NW has been a curiosity with residents and visitors alike ever since its completion in 1905. The 25-acre site consists of regulator houses, sand bins, washers, and massive underground sand filtration beds that treated and cleaned water held at the McMillan Reservoir before delivering it to individual homes in the city. Its innovative system of water purification led to the elimination of typhoid epidemics and the reduction of many other communicable diseases during its 80-year existence.

            Early residents of the city were dependent upon local springs for their water needs, with three downtown sections of the city utilizing the City Spring on the north side of C Street, NW, between 4th and 6th Streets; Caffery’s Spring (also known as the Hotel Spring) at the northwest corner of 9th and F Streets, NW; one located on the public space property located at 13th Street, NW, north of I Street; and another further west, near the center of Franklin Park, (now Judiciary Square); and the Smith Spring, now the McMillan Reservoir itself.

            In fact, the earliest documented instance of water being piped throughout the District’s streets for public use was in 1808, when the city permitted residents living in the 600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, to “convey” water from the city spring to their neighborhood via pipes fashioned from hollowed out trees that were sealed end to end and buried under the street. In 1850, the Potomac River was identified as the District’s principal water source in a congressionally funded engineering study to determine the most available mode of supplying water to the expanding city.

            The study was overseen by Lieutenant Montgomery C. Meigs, who later served as Quartermaster General of the Union Army; he is credited with planning and building the structures and facilities that would eventually become the Washington Aqueduct, which first became operational on January 3, 1859.  The Washington Aqueduct system was believed to be sufficient for the future water needs of the city, but by 1902, it was no longer adequate due to population growth and the need for a filtration system to treat the heavy sediment found in the Potomac water.

          

  A site was chosen for a massive sand filtration plant next to the Washington City (later McMillan) Reservoir, and construction began in the spring of 1903. The plant itself was designed by Lieutenant Col. Alexander M. Miller, who had begun to experiment with various types of slow sand and mechanical filters to purify the water supply being delivered to thousands of city homes. He had recommended mechanical filters, which was met by resistance by the Washington medical community, and a compromise was reached in which slow sand filters would be used, to which a coagulant was added during times of high turbidity in the water.

            The complex, eventually renamed the McMillan Reservoir and Slow Sand Filter Plant, consists of a pumping station for raising water from the reservoir to the 29 massive underground, natural sand filter beds--each consisting of about an acre of surface area, a 15 million-gallon filtered water reservoir, a pumping station with three centrifugal pumps, various boilers, and a power plant. Each of the sand filters consists of about 40 inches of sand supported on 12 inches of gravel through which the water flows. The combined capacity of the filters produced about 80 million gallons of purified water each day.

            The plant was completed and began operation by October, 1905, resulting in a vast improvement of the quality of water being delivered to residents. Its bacterial content was reduced by over 99 percent, and diseases such as typhoid fever were reduced from 47 to just eight residents out of every 100,000 during the period from 1909 to 1919. The water was also starkly clear, such a change from the previous muddy condition that one woman went on record as saying, “It was almost immodest to take a bath in clear water.”

            One of the challenges that emerged, however, was the cleaning of the sand filters.  The first two inches of sand in each filter had to be shoveled and removed by hand, and then flushed clean by a reversal system of water, discharging mud into the city sewer system. The cleaned sand was processed in the large cylindrical concrete structures seen today above the surface of the sand beds. The cleaning structures are often mistaken for the sand filters themselves. Over 20,000 tons of sand were washed every year, and was eventually returned to the sand beds via subterranean carts pulled by donkeys.

            The sand washing process continued until mechanized washing machines were introduced in the 1920s. Earlier, in 1913, a McMillan memorial fountain was dedicated alongside the reservoir, both named for Michigan Senator James McMillan. It remained there until 1941, when excavation for a new clear water basin was required to serve the needs of a growing city population. It also served as the site of a battery of anti-aircraft guns throughout World War II.

            The complex continued to serve its original purpose until 1986; ownership was transferred to the city a year later, and the site has been abandoned ever since. The overall McMillan Reservoir site was designated a DC Historic Landmark in 1991. Due to its continuing deterioration, the DC Preservation League placed it on its “Most Endangered” list in 2000, and only recently have plans been discussed for its redevelopment.

Copyright Paul K. Williams 

African-American cook-shops and 'hotels' in early Washington, DC

The image of a sole shopkeeper tending his roadside stand at 1st Street and Florida Avenue, NE at first does little more than remind Washingtonians about the rural nature of what was then still considered the edge of town, when the image was taken shortly after the turn of the twentieth century.  Upon closer inspection, however, the image reveals walls covered with philosophical sayings and observations, some of which might not ever be explained.  The image certainly is a rare snapshot of a lifestyle experienced by hundreds of thousands of post Civil War African Americans that eventually flooded Washington DC in the search for jobs in the decades following the War. 

The man and proprietor of the stand is Keith Sutherland, who pronounced his name “Keitt.”  He had been born enslaved in Charles County, Maryland about 1854, and escaped to Washington in 1862.  He first worked polishing shoes around the Treasury building, and recalled in a 1900 Washington Post article about watching President Lincoln’s funeral possession pass by, with a white horse tied behind the hearse.  He then resided, as did hundreds if not thousands of freed blacks, in a contraband camp in a large vacant Square just south of 12^th and S Street, NW, where the Garrison Elementary school now exists.  The squalid conditions, bars, poolrooms, tents and shacks extended southward for a block in an area appropriately coined “Hell’s Bottom.”        

Sutherland eventually opened a ramshackle food stall at 1111 R Street, in the heart of Hells Bottom.  In 1897, a Post article reported that there were hundreds of such stands, located in nearly every alley of the city.  It read:  “The alleys of this city are filled with colored cook-shops, which heretofore have paid no license fee…only the police and the people who visit the numerous alleys and little streets of the city know how many of these cook-shops exist. The colored people generally resort to these places for pigs' feet, meat pie, and substantial provender prepared by the old mammies and quaint old colored men who run them, and cook dishes to the taste of the people of their race.” (Washington Post, January 1, 1897).  At the time, Sutherland was fined $25 for not having a license, as a new enforcement took place.      

In 1900, Sutherland was interviewed at his stand in Hell’s Bottom, which offers a rare glimpse into life in the neighborhood at the time.  He stated: “There were two very lively places in those days. One was a triangular square at Rhode Island avenue and Eleventh street. It was here that an eloquent colored preacher, who went by the name of ‘John the Baptist,’ used to hold revival services, which were attended by the newly-freed slaves. The revival was all right, but the four or five barrooms in the neighborhood used to hold the overflow meetings, and when the crowds went home at night you couldn’t tell whether they were shouting from religion or whisky.

Love and Romance in the Seventh Grade!

This headline caught my attention while I was researching a house the other day.  It appeared in the March 19, 1915 edition of the Washington Post.  Two youngsters from the Bloomingdale neighborhood - 162 Bryant Street, NW and 78 V Street, NW - had jumped a train to New York with the hope of an elopement. 

The young lovers were just age 16 and 15, respectively, and they had made their way to New York's Grand Central station where they discovered that they only had $2 between them; New York was a bit too expensive for their tastes.  Their youth alone eventually caught the attention of a railroad ticket agent, and their plans to marry were foiled.  I'll let you read the article at left for yourself!

Copyright Paul K. Williams