Georgetown Time Machine

This week on Georgetown Time Machine I am checking out yet another photo from the DC Historical Society. It shows the scene just west of the old Aqueduct Bridge circa 1930.

There are several notable features that jump out. The first is, of course, the fact there’s a railroad track. In case you didn’t realize it, there once was a freight rail line that went along what is now the Capital Crescent Trail. It came all the way down Water and K Streets. Trains ran on the track as late as 1985.

Here’s a train at 33rd and Water St. in the 70s:

Next, the aqueduct abutment is still around. But this photo shows the bridge superstructure that once stood on top of the abutment. By this time, the aqueduct bridge was really just a normal bridge. But it once was a real aqueduct as you can see from this 19th century photo looking south across the aqueduct from Georgetown into then rural Arlington:

The aqueduct bridge was replaced by the Key Bridge in the 1920s and torn down soon after. The bridge abutments remained for decades though. Here they are in the 1960s:

Most of them were blown up with dynamite in 1962, but they left one near the southern shore as a relic.

Finally, the last notable thing about the top photo is that it shows the entrance to the old Dempsey’s Boat House. This was a public boathouse that offered boat rentals to the public for decades in the early part of the 20th century. When Thompson’s Boathouse was opened in the 1950s, though, it was abandoned. It later burned to the ground in a spectacular 1961 fire:

History is coming somewhat in full circle though. The location of the old Dempsey’s Boathouse is the future site of the relocated Key Bridge Boathouse, which will move once Georgetown University starts building its boathouse.