Tour of Duty

—Barracks Row Heritage Trail —

This is Eastern Market, where for more than a century farm products have drawn shoppers from the neighborhood and around the city. It is Washington's only 19th-century market to remain in continuous operation to this day.

Eastern Market is the second market bearing the name. The first operated from 1805 to 1872 on the block bounded by Fifth, Sixth, K and L streets, SE. It was located near the Anacostia River at a time when markets relied on water transportation to move goods. By 1872, however, citizens were calling for a more modern facility located closer to the bulk of Capitol Hill's residents. This market was designed by Adolf Cluss as a state-of-the-art facility during the post-Civil War building boom.

Inside, merchant's stalls brimmed with meats, poultry, fish, produce, flowers, dairy products, baked goods — even freshly ground horseradish. Outside, farmers from Capitol Hill, Anacostia, and nearby Maryland sold produce from wagons and stalls. Young boys got their first jobs hauling groceries home for customers or picking mold off cheeses. Some merchants also served as wholesalers to the Navy Yard, government agencies, and restaurants and hotels.

In the early 1900s, small neighborhood and chain grocery stores offering home delivery began competing with Eastern Market. In the 1920s supermarkets



arrived. Business suffered, and only citizens protest prevented the market's closing in 1929. Nonetheless area farmers continued to come. The market went through more tough times until the 1960s, when it was rediscovered by a new generation charmed by vendors' century-old traditions and fruit free of plastic wrappings.

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Show me all markers in:  Washington, DC  |  20003  |  District Of Columbia  |  United States of America

Eastern Market
John W. Harrod
Edge of the Row Historical
At the Crossroads
Commerce and Community
Life on the Park
Ebenezer United Methodist Church
Healing the Wounded
Ebenezer United Methodist Church
Little Ebenezer

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