A Self-Reliant People

— Greater Deanwood Heritage Trail —

Formerly known as the Bladensburg Piscataway Road, Minnesota Avenue has long served as an eastern gateway into Washington. Since the original wooden Benning Road Bridge across the Anacostia River was erected nearby in 1800, countless people have crossed the river here. During the Civil War (1861-1865), Fort Mahan, named for U.S. Military Academy Professor Dennis Mahan, defended this entry point against Confederate attack. Union soldiers searched the wagons of everyone entering the city from checkpoints at the foot of the bridge.

In the early 1970s, brightly painted shops and markets operated here. Yet the nearby junkyard, numerous boarded-up buildings, vacant lots, and electric power plant smokestacks gave the area a bleak feeling. Many local merchants and residents, unable to attract support of area banks, believed that city officials would never show interest in this long-neglected section of the city.

Things changed when the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority began construction on Metro's Orange Line, linking Vienna, Virginia, with New Carrollton, Maryland, through here. Deanwood stood to benefit from a new, quicker route downtown. When the Minnesota Avenue Metrorail station to your right, and the Deanwood station one-half mile behind you, opened up in November 1978, residents saw the dawning



of a new day. "We're not forgotten any longer," one told a newspaper reporter. "We've got Metro."

The Metro station was once the site of Benning Elementary School, established in 1883 for the area's white children under the city's segregated public school system. the school closed in 1952 and stood empty for many years.

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From Gambling to Garden Apartments
Mayfair Mansions/Albert I. Cassell
"What Magic Has Been Wrought Here"
Fort Mahan
100 Years of Afro-American History
Eastland Gardens
Designed to Compete
Shopping on Sheriff
With These Hands
Lederer Gardens

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