Georgetown Time Machine: American Elms

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out another photo from the DC Historical Society. It’s a photo of Q and 31st from 1950.

In a lot of ways, the scene hasn’t really changed much in 75+ years. This stretch of Q St. still is a cathedral of trees with dozens of American elms still around:

The giant elm that used to be on the northeast corner of the intersection (and can be seen prominently in the 1950 photo) sadly came down within the last ten years. But many remain. I would guess that the skinny tall tree second from the right in the 1950 photo is the tall one you can still see today.

This is remarkable for a couple reasons. Of course it’s always striking to see the same tree standing in two photos so long apart in years. But it’s especially notable that they’re American elms. This beautiful tree once covered city streets across the country (hence why “Elm Street” is one of the most popular street names in the US). Its shape is especially well suited to city sidewalks. It has a vase-like shape that fans out at the top with a massive spread, covering a huge area with shade.

But they are susceptible to Dutch elm’s disease, which first reached America from Asia in the early part of the 20th century. But it really took off after WWII and it decimated the tree canopy of countless cities. It reached DC somewhat later than it did in the northeast or midwest. And an aggressive response from NPS and the Forestry Service meant that a lot more of them survived here than in other cities.

And Q street is one of the stretches that can brag of a particularly healthy group of mature American elms. So that’s why the photos are so alike.

And better yet, scientists have identified new sub-species of American elm, like the Princeton elm, that are seemingly more resistant to the disease. These new specimens have been planted along Q St. to eventually fill in the spaces left once the giants finally fall. That is what you can now see on the left in the new photo. (There’s also a bunch of them that were planted in front of the White House about ten years ago).

So with some luck and some time, this view will continue to be essentially the same for a long while yet.