Kingman Park is a historic district and residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C.. Kingman Park's boundaries are 19th Street NE to the west, East Capitol Street NE to the south, Benning Road to the north, and Oklahoma Avenue and the RFK Stadium campus to the east. The neighborhood is composed primarily of two-story brick rowhousesKnight, Athelia. "Kingman Park Is Thriving on Community Spirit." Washington Post. April 2, 1988. (most of which were built when the neighborhood was founded in 1928). Kingman Park is named after Brigadier General Dan Christie Kingman, the former head of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (for whom nearby Kingman Island and Kingman Lake are also named)."Lake Kingman Wall Bids Are Received." Washington Post. March 10, 1926; "$170,000 Annually Spent Developing Park in Anacostia," Washington Post, September 26, 1926.
Early history Before the 1920s, Kingman Park was a largely uninhabited, wooded area located near the D.C. city dump. The area was originally on the shores of the Anacostia River. Between 1860 and the late 1880s, large mudflats ("the Anacostia flats") formed on both banks of the Anacostia River due to deforestation and the heavy erosion it caused.Gutheim, Frederick A. and Lee, Antoinette J. Worthy of the Nation: Washington, DC, From L'Enfant to the National Capital Planning Commission. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006, p. 147.Coues, Elliott and Prentiss, D. Webster. "Avifauna Columbiana." Bulletin of the United States National Museum. No. 26. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1883, p. 17. At this time, the city allowed its sewage to pour untreated into the Anacostia. Marsh grass began growing in the flats, trapping the sewage and leading public health experts to conclude that the flats were unsanitary. Health officials also feared that the flats were a prime breeding ground of malaria- and yellow fever-carrying mosquitoes. By 1876, a large mudflat had formed just south of where Benning Bridge is today, and another, wide, had developed just south of the former flat.Report of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army. United States Army. Corps of Engineers. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1876, p. 357. By 1883, a stream named "Succabel's Gut" traversed the upper flat and another dubbed "Turtle Gut" the lower, and both flats hosted substantial populations of American lotus, lily pads, and wild rice. In 1898, officials with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the District of Columbia convinced the United States Congress that the Anacostia River should be dredged to create a more commercially viable channel that would enhance the local economy as well as provide land where factories or warehouses might be built.Forgey, Benjamin. "The Anacostia, Stream of Consciousness." Washington Post. March 28, 1987"To Dredge Anacostia River." Washington Post. August 9, 1902. The material dredged from the river would be used to build up the flats and turn them into dry land, eliminating the public health dangers they caused. In 1901, the McMillan Commission (a body established by the United States Senate to advise the Congress and District of Columbia on ways to improve the parks, monuments, memorials, and infrastructure of the city as well as plan for urban renewal, economic growth, and expansion of the federal government) concluded that commercial land was not needed and proposed turning the reclaimed flats into parkland.Gutheim and Lee, Worthy of the Nation, 2006, p. 148."Flats Soon to Go." Washington Post. October 10, 1909. The D.C. government agreed in 1905,"For A Park on Flats." Washington Post. November 5, 1905. the United States Commission of Fine Arts (a federal advisory agency with review authority over the design and aesthetics of projects within Washington, D.C.) and the Army Corps of Engineers concurred in 1914, and the National Capital Park and Planning Commission signed on (belatedly) to the park plan in 1928. Most of the reclaimed mudflats were subsequently declared to be parkland and named Anacostia Water Park (now Anacostia Park) in 1919. This left the Kingman Park neighborhood cut off from the Anacostia River.
In 1805, local landowner Benjamin Stoddert built a wooden bridge over the Anacostia River at the present site of Benning Bridge.Bryan, Wilhelmus Bogart. A History of the National Capital From Its Foundation Through the Period of the Adoption of the Organic Act. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914, p. 492.Croggon, James. "When City Was Young." Washington Evening Star. August 17, 1906. The bridge was sold to Thomas Ewell, who in the 1820s sold it to William Benning.Bryan, A History of the National Capital From Its Foundation Through the Period of the Adoption of the Organic Act, 1914, p. 98-99. Thereafter the structure was known as Benning's Bridge (or Benning Bridge). The wooden bridge was rebuilt several times after 1805. This included construction of a steel bridge in 1892,Wasserman, Paul and Hausrath, Don. Washington, D.C. from A to Z: The Traveler's Look-Up Source for the Nation's Capital. Sterling, Va.: Capital Books, 2003, p. 33. and the current beam-concrete pier bridge in 1934.Wheeler, Linda. "Benning Heights' Twists and Turns." Washington Post. October 25, 1997.
Building the neighborhood
Noted D.C. real estate developer Charles Sager began constructing homes on the vacant land that is now Kingman Park in 1927. The first 40 homes in the area, built on 24th Street NE, were sold in July 1928."Forty Homes Purchased From Charles D. Sager." Washington Post. July 15, 1928. Sager found that white homebuyers were not interested in living in the area, so he focused on selling homes to African Americans. Thus, Kingman Park became the first D.C. neighborhood of single-family houses to be developed specifically for Black people.Duggan, Paul. "Home Team, Home Fears." Washington Post. April 8, 1991. By 1931, there were 230 homes in the area."750 Homes Planned For Kingman Park." Washington Post. February 15, 1931. Development included 22nd through 25 Streets NE, between Benning Road and E Street SE.
A major boost to development in the area came with the construction of Charles E. Young Elementary School and Hugh M. Browne Junior High School. In May 1930, the District of Columbia Public Schools decided to construct one junior high, and one senior high, and four elementary schools in the city, including a "platoon school" for black children in northeast D.C. near Benning Road."New Schools for Which Names Will Be Chosen." Washington Post. May 13, 1930.A "platoon school" (also known as a "work-study-play" school, "Gary system," and "departmental" system) is a system of education where children are assigned to two or more "platoons." The system arose as a means of handling extreme overcrowding in schools. Under the platoon system, one platoon works on one educational subject while the other platoon works on a different educational subject. After a designated period of time (e.g., an hour), the platoons switch to another subject, often by moving to another classroom. By the end of the school day, all platoons will have studied all subjects. The platoon system is in contrast to the "self-contained" system, where a single teacher teaches all subjects in a single classroom. The system was devised by Gary, Indiana, public school superintendent William Albert Wirt in the first decade of the 1900s. See: Diemer, G.W. "The Platoon School." The Elementary School Journal. June 1925; Case, Roscoe David. The Platoon School in America. Palo Alton, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1931. Originally scheduled to be finished in November 1931, the need for the new school was so great that the school board pushed up the construction completion date by two months in November 1930."School Projects Will Be Advanced." Washington Post. November 15, 1930."Projects Advance in Northeast Area." Washington Post. April 26, 1931."Furniture Supposed to Be in Schools Is Still Missing." Washington Post. September 23, 1931. The new school was named for United States Army Colonel Charles E. Young, who was only the third black man to graduate from West Point, the first black U.S. national park superintendent, the first black man to achieve the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army, and the highest-ranking black officer in the Army at the time of his death in 1922."Col. Charles Young Dies in Nigeria." New York Times. January 13, 1922; "Memorial Service Honors Col. Young." Washington Post. January 26, 1931. Young Elementary School opened on October 1, 1931, (delayed a month due to construction backlogs), and graduated its first class in January 1932."Negro Elementary Schools Graduate Large Numbers." Washington Post. January 31, 1932.After several years of declining enrollment, Young Elementary School closed in 2008. The District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation leases the building from the school district. See: "Labba, Theola and Haynes, V. Dion. "Schools Targeted For Closure." Washington Post. January 13, 2008; Haynes, V. Dion. "2 Closed Schools Go to Charters." Washington Post. June 21, 2008. Efforts to open a junior high school for African American students in the Kingman Park area began around 1920,McQuirter, Marya Annette. "'Our Cause Is Marching On': Parent Activism, Browne Junior High School, and the Multiple Meanings of Equality in Post-War Washington." Washington History. 16:2 (Fall/Winter 2004/2005), p. 68. but it was not until 1930 that the D.C. public school system actually built one. Constructed adjacent to Young Elementary School, the new junior high was named for Hugh M. Browne, a Howard University professor and prominent educator. Browne Junior High School opened in May 1932, and was the first junior high school for black students in Northeast D.C.
The two new schools significantly boosted interest from homebuyers and development in the Kingman Park neighborhood. Sager announced plans in February 1931 to build another 350 homes in the neighborhood, more than doubling its existing size. The city also announced plans to build a new high school (in time, this became Spingarn High School) next to the Young and Browne schools. Additional houses were built in the late 1930s as sales took off.Miller, Frederic and Gillette, Howard. Washington Seen: A Photographic History, 1875-1965. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, p. 159.
Most of the area's first residents were middle class African American families whose head of household worked for the federal government.Brown, Sterling Allen. A Son's Return: Selected Essays of Sterling A. Brown. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996, p. 40. Most of the African Americans who moved to the neighborhood in the 1940s and 1950s were Black people leaving the Deep South during the Great Migration.Latimer, Leah Y. "An Aging Neighborhood of 'Empty Nests' Mirrors City Trend of Shifting Population." Washington Post. June 2, 1982. The construction of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in 1961 proved problematic for the neighborhood. The stadium lies directly east of Kingman Park, and soon after it opened residents began complaining about the immense amounts of traffic that flooded their streets, attendees at stadium events illegally parking on city streets, and excessive noise and trash.Abrams, Brett L. Capital Sporting Grounds: A History of Stadium and Ballpark Construction in Washington, D.C. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2009, p. 202.