Tag Archives: Dumbarton Bridge

Dumbarton Bridge by M.V. Jantzen.

It’s easy to ignore a thing of beauty when you pass it every single day. It’s even easier to ignore it when you cruise over on top of it in a bus or car. The “it” in question is the Dumbarton Bridge, and today GM wants to stop and take in the bridge’s beauty and tell its interesting story.

Georgetown was formed in 1751, decades before the founding of the District of Columbia and the city of Washington. Even after the creation of the District, Georgetown remained separated from the city of Washington both as a legal and a infrastructural matter through much of the 19th century. In 1871, however, Georgetown was merged with the city of Washington. In the decades after the legal merger, rapid residential developments directly to the east of Georgetown contributed greatly towards a physical merger as well.

Specifically, in the 1890s construction of the Connecticut Avenue bridge (now known as Taft Bridge) was started, Massachusetts Ave. north of Rock Creek was paved, and the Kalorama Estate was subdivided into residential plots. This inspired Georgetowners to push for a new bridge connecting north Georgetown with the quickly growing Kalorama neighborhood. They asserted that Q st. was the best option, although it came with a couple pretty significant complications (GM will get to that later). Continue reading →