Evening Star Newspaper, October 11, 1936, Page 53

Stage Part 4—8 Pages and Screen he Sundiy Stad WASHINGTON, FEAT D. C, 8 URES UNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 11, 1936. DECADE IN CAPITAL SHOWS AMBITIOUS DESIGNS OF NATION Legislators and Executive Officials Have Worked With Spirit? Shared by First President, to Make City Leading £ - Government Center of World. ' Note—This is the fourth of a * geries of articles dealing with the growth and future development of Washington from its humble be- ginning as a network of Indian villages, through the Colonial pe- riod, to its present proud promise as the finest and most modern world capital. Another article in . the series will follow shortly. By William A. Millen. BLE men in Congress have fought for the great Govern- A ment building development in ‘Washington — progress that has achieved more in the past decade than in any similar period of Ameri- can history. While Congress as a whole may claim credit, the leaders have forced these improvements through in response to demands of the people of Washington. For long, lean years spokesmen of the local community were “voices erying in the wilderness.” But their constant agitation, like dropping water. gradually wore away the stone wall of indifference. Men of divers political faiths, Sen- ators and Representatives alike, as well as various Presidents, have put their shoulders to the wheel to get Washington out of the primeval quagmire. } The old Capitol, i the corner stone of which was laid by Président | George Washington himself, long Jooked down upon desolation here. B i = el Theodore Roosevelt Island, formerly Analos established Mason’s ferry at the Virginia end of the Key Bridge. . Even at the close of the World War Uncle Sam, bearded and a century tive branch of his Government housed largely in rented buildings. The Capitol adequately took care of the legislative branch. Recent ex- pansion was made in Senate and House Office Buildings. But it was only last year that the judicial branch was given a fitting home. Out of a cubbyhole, the erstwhile Senate chamber, it stepped into a full-blown temple of Greece. Westward on Pennsylvania avenue, | the White House, begun under Wash- and a half young, still had the execu- | | since John Adams has occupied it, al- | ]ing!on'! direction, has long stood as | the hub of the executive branch of the Government. Every Chief Executive | though the Madisons were ousted for a time when the British burned | the mansion during the War of 1812. | Around that blanched structure has ! grown up the executive family, far | different from the three departments | that L'Enfant originally pictured, | until today the New Deal occupies, in addition to all the owned buildings, | leased quarters, for which it pays & | rental of upward of $2,500,000 an- | nually. Aare st ¥ wrrw e Kk it (1) The latest photograph, taken from the air, of the Fed- eral Triangle, now rapidly nearing completion. The Ar- chives Building, newest of point of the triangle. An airview, showing Capitol (Underwood & Underwood.) the group, is shown at the (2) Hill in the foreground. The new Supreme Court Building is in the right foreground, nearby is the steel framework of the Library of Congress annex. The new Mall development is shown in a straight line between the Capitol and the Monument. (Fairchild Photo.) (3) Richard N. Elliott, acting controller general of the United States. (Harris & Ewing.) United States Supreme Court Building. (4) The new (5) Letter from former Chief Justice Taft to Richard Elliott. On either side of the White House, as the years sped by, grew up the Treasury and the State, War and Navy Building. Other structures fol- lowed—the Post Office Department, the Department of Agriculture, the old Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Interior Department. Under the whip and spur of the World War as the Munitions Building. SvpreuLourt of e Uniied Sraaes Weekington D ¢ December 21, 19280 My ¢ear Brother Elliotts T want to write and thank you for the speed with which you put through this bill for the Bupreme Courts 1% is 2 great achievement. T look forward with much pleasure to our asseciation in the Commissions With best wishes for the Christmas 3esson and Lhe New Your's, belleve me;Tes alvays, Sincerely yours; :-.. ",, a:ul.' et use tat. B, “‘Men of All Political Faiths Have Put Shoulders to Wheel, as’ Buildings and Parks Have Been Created to Emphasize Im- portance | they stand today, while men think | buildings, 20 years after the conflict. Some day soon, they say, these struc- tures will come out of the park—as of them as “temporary” nearly they ought, F well as | buildings. | The problem of adequately accom- was erected the new Navy Depart- | modating the executive branch of the ment in West Potomac Park, as well | Government had long been discussed. There | Officials realized that the American 'OR long years the Justice, Labor and Commerce Departments, as the Interstate Commerce | Commission, were housed in rented of Growing Place of Influence. Commonwealth, passing the “billion- | larger than ever before. Washington dollar” stage in its rapid growth, |witnessed the erection of many tem- needed fitting facilities under its own | porary structures, of tar roofs, thin rooftrees. partitions and veritable firetraps, so There had been an omnibus public | dangerous that smoking was prohib- buildings measure enacted into law |ited within them. Some of these were back in 1913, on the eve of the World | constructed hastily on park property War in Europe, but it accomplished | and there are still some there. Bit | little, either here or throughout the | most of these temporary buildings country. For America's attention was | have now been razed—the most recent | soon focused upon the successful |of them to go being that just vacated prosecution of the war and building | by the Federal Trade Commission at for the regular establishment had to | Twentieth street and Constitution take a rear rank. | avenue to provide ground for the new But war-torn Europe caused the Federal Reserve Board Building. | United States Government to bulk A There are still buildings E and F in = —— | the Mall, however, as well as the Fed- POTOMAC By Charles V. Grunwell. | OW that money has been ap- 1 propriated and work com- | N menced on the George Wash- | ington Memorial Highway, in | virginia, opposite Georgetown, it might be of interest to learn some- thing of the early historly of this part of the Potomac ang the part it played in the development of the adjacent | country and the City of Washington. | The Potomac gorge begins with the hills of Washington on one side and the Analostan Island (Theodore Roosevelt Park) on the other, and continues upstream for miles, creating scenery hard to equad in the East. ) tan Island, former home of John "GORGE HAS PLACE IN GROWTH OF WASHINGTON Capt. John Smith made history for | this part of the Potomac -when, in 11608, he ascended it and discovered the Little Falls. In his book entitled “Third Book of the Proceedings and Accidents in the English Colony in Virginia” he writes: “On the 16th of June, 1608, we felle with the River Ps‘towme:’(l Having gone so high with the bote a5 we could (to the Falls), we met diuers Salvages in Canowes well loaden with the flesh of Baeres, Deere 1nnd other beastes, whereof we had part.” That Capt. Smith appreciated the wild, romantic beauty of the gorge is \ evidenced when he wrote: “And lastly, Mason, who World Photo. s Wide <& |Capt. Smith Found Wild, Romantic Beauty in Section, Visited Later by First White | Man Known to Have Come to Local Area. - Nacotchtanke (an Indian settlement | | of ‘80 able men’ [warriors] occupying the eastern bank of the Anacostia | River from Geesboro to Bladensburg) . .. The river 10 miles above this place | maketh his passage down a low, pleas- ant valley, overshadowed in many places with high, rocky mountains, from whence distil innumerable sweet | and pleasant springs.” Concerning the Little Falls, he re- cords: “We found the navigation ob- structed by immense rocks, spangled with mica, which glistened like gold in the sunlight, as the water trickled down their sides.” 'WENTY-FOUR years later (1632) this section of the Potomac was visited by another English explorer and trader, Henry Fleet. Historians have bestowed upon him the distinc- tion of being the “first white man au- thentically known to have set foot on the soll of the District of Columbia.” In the month of June, 1632, he voyaged up the Potomac, obtained “800 weight of beaver” from the Indians on the Anacostia River, and continued up the Potomac to the vicinity of the Little Falls, He described his discovery as follows: “This place, without all question, is- the most pleasant and most convenient for habitation, the air temperate in manner and not violent in Winter.” + ° ; 5 Fieet's favorable Sudgident of this sec- tion of the Potoniic was substantiated years later when, in 1783, the com- missioners appointed by Congress viewed the territory adjacent to the Little Falls and recommended it as being the most suitable place in whicl to locate the National Capital. “At Georgetown . . . is a rising ground somewhat broken, but pleasantly sit- uated and commanding good water and other prospects.” Both Smith and Fleet found this portion of the Potomac full of fish and the surrounding country overrun with game. Fleet, commenting, wrote: “Here the river aboundeth with all manner of fish. The Indians in one night commonly catch 30 sturgeon in & place .where the river is not above twelve fathoms broad. And as fof deer, buffaloes, bears, turkeys, the woods do swarm with them. And the sofl is exceedingly fertile, but above this place the country is rocky and mountainous like Cannida.” On the banks of the river in this section of the gorge are several land- ing places, which, although now long forgotten, were of vital importance to the aborigines and the people of Colonial days. Long before the white man came to America the Indians used the falls (now known as Pimmitt Run) land- ing, on the Virginia side of the river & short distance belqw Chain Bridge. ‘This was one of the two main river crossings in that neighborhood. Fleet landed. there and traded with the Iroquois Indians, who crossed the Po- tomac in that place on their long A eral Surplus Commodities Corporation Building at Twentieth street and New York avenue and the Army Head- quarters Company structure at Eight« | journeys of conquest from the North against Algonquin tribes of Northern Virginia. FTER the Indians were driven | from this part of the country the | settlers came and raised tobacco. receive this tobacco a warehouse was built on the banks of the river at the “Falls Landing.” that were established along the water- ways of Northern Virginia. But the one at the “falls” and the one at Hunting Creek (Alexandria) were the only two of the five that were located | directly on the Potomac River. The A view along for miles above Washington, am To It was one of five | eenth street and Virginia avenue. others, Dumfries, Acquia Creek 'ndE Yet the old wartime Food Admin< Quantico, were inland at the heads|. A of the then navigable waters of their | iStration and other buildings are gone, closing an interesting chapter in respective streams. But when the | . resting exportltion of tobacco ceased, at the American ingenuity in times of stress. | outbreak of the Revolutionary War,| After the war men's minds turned the tobacco “rolling houses,” as they | to things of peace. And again the were better known at that time, were | question of housing adequately the abandoned, allowed to fall into ruins executive branch of the Government and have been long forgotten. came to the fore. Of the number of old landing places| Today the Triangle houses the De- | on the Potomac in this section, the x:]'cm:rt I?;Dgfm::efl:,;s:hame?g' one known as “Braddock’s Rock” i5 | partment, the Interstate Commerce the most notorious. Located near Commission, the Bureau of Internal | the present Naval Hospital, it is a rock | Revenue, the Department of Justice ~ (Continued on Second Page.) (Continued on Sixth Page) the Potomac Gorge, looking upstream from Chain Bridge. The gorge continues —Star Stafl Photo. L] rugged scenery of unmatched beauty. 4