Fort Reno: Growth and Displacement
The Story of Tenleytown's African-American Community
The fire hydrant in the field.
Today, there is something strange at Fort Reno Park in Tenleytown. Something is out of place. Unexplained and unmarked, a fire hydrant sits perched on the grassy incline of the field. But how did it get there, and why?
The fire hydrant is a sign of utility and forethought. It is urban and inherently man-made. It is meant to help people. But what if there are no people? A fire hydrant is meaningless without a community to use it.
There was once a community at Fort Reno.
From the 1860s into the mid-twentieth century, African Americans developed an interconnected and prosperous community on this land. Starting in the 1930s, these citizens were systematically removed from the neighborhood they built and their homes were destroyed.
Although the fire hydrant in the field is one of the only remaining physical pieces of evidence of this community, thousands of people made Fort Reno their home. And their stories live on.
Reno's Growth
The Civil War: Fort Reno and the Defenses of Washington
Originally named Fort Pennsylvania, Fort Reno was constructed in 1861 on privately-owned land in Tennallytown.
Fort Reno was strategically important during the Civil War.
The fort sat on the highest elevation in the District of Columbia and was a major battery in the perimeter of fortifications that formed the defenses of Washington.
Source: Benjamin Franklin Cooling III and Walton H. Owen II, Mr. Lincoln's Forts: A Guide to the Civil War Defenses of Washington (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 155-63.
Image Courtesy of: Library of Congress
Though within the District of Columbia itself, Fort Reno was far removed from the City of Washington.
During this period, the neighborhood of Tennallytown was unmistakably rural and much less densely populated than the urban core of the District.
Unlike the City of Washington, land near Fort Reno was largely agricultural and expansive (not to mention less expensive).
During the war, the Union Army maintained a commanding presence in Tennallytown.
"Camp of 55th New York Infantry, near Tenallytown, D.C." Image Courtesy of: Library of Congress
Plan of Fort Reno Image Courtesy of: The National Archives and Records Administration
It is widely assumed that Fort Reno was a destination for freedpeople arriving in the District of Columbia during the war. Tenleytown historian Judith Beck Helm claims that freedpeople formed makeshift communities in the area surrounding the fort.
During the Civil War, Union Army installations were a critical destination for escaping slaves. To escape behind Union lines meant safety, wages, and freedom. This exchange of citizenship for "service to the Union ... was a revolutionary new bargain" between freedpeople and the Union Army.
However, few primary sources have been found to document the wartime experiences of African Americans at Fort Reno.
That is not to say that freedpeople did not live and work at Fort Reno during the war; it is quite probable that they did.
But it is difficult to know and understand the lived reality of freedpeople at Reno during this period. Existing primary and secondary sources have privileged the military function of Fort Reno over records of African Americans and their experiences.
Regardless of these wartime ambiguities, freedpeople helped grow and transform Reno in the decades following the war.
Sources: Judith Beck Helm, Tenleytown, D.C.: Country Village into City Neighborhood (Washington, DC: Tennally Press, 1981), 168 and Chandra Manning, "Working for Citizenship in Civil War Contraband Camps," Journal of the Civil War Era 4, no. 2 (June 2014): 192, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26062149.
Reconstruction and the Creation of Reno City
By 1866, the land occupied by Fort Reno was returned to its original owners: Giles and Jane Dyer. However, it would not retain its antebellum composition for long. Within a few years, the land was subdivided and developed.
In 1869, Jane Dyer sold the land to real estate businessmen Newall Onion and Alexander Butts.
"THE MOST DELIGHTFUL BUILDING SITES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA"
Onion and Butts divided Reno into a subdivision of more than 1,000 residential lots.
In the July 27, 1869 Evening Star, they advertised "lots of 2,500 square feet each, and one half of these" they offered "at the low figure of $12.50."
The Onion and Butts subdivision was the structural foundation for the Reno community that developed.
At $12.50 each, these plots were moderately affordable. Judith Beck Helm claims that freedpeople could purchase them with only a $5 down payment.
Whether freedpeople purchased or rented the land in the Reno City subdivision, they were able to make it a more permanent home.
Sources: Evening Star, July 27, 1869 and Helm, Tenleytown, D.C., 168
"The attention of all, especially employees of the Government, is invited ..."
However, it is notable that Onion and Butts advertised their plots particularly to "employees of the Government" looking for a "country residence, or making a profitable investment."
Emphasizing that Reno was "within twenty minutes' ride of Washington," this advertisement primarily targeted people living in the City of Washington - not freedpeople already surrounding Reno.
While it is possible that freedpeople did not settle en masse in Reno until Reconstruction, the perspective (and even inclusion) of African Americans who settled in Reno during the Civil War is largely absent from the historical record.
Source: Evening Star, July 27, 1869
Land, free labor, and voting were important markers of freedom.
For freedpeople who did settle in Reno, the availability of land was an instrument of opportunity. It created the possibility for a "landed independence" that, "even as renters or squatters, could enable freedpeople to separate themselves from former owners, avoid dependence on wages, and make their own decisions about divisions of labor, the hours and pace of work, and the crops they would raise."
The rural composition of Reno was well-suited to create this sense of self-determination. Compared to the confines of Washington, land at Fort Reno was readily available and reasonably cheap.
Source: "In Search of Landed Independence," in Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867: Series 3, Volume 2: Land and Labor, 1866-1867, eds. René Hayden, Anthony E. Kaye, Kate Masur, Steven F. Miller, Susan E. O'Donovan, Leslie S. Rowland, and Stephen A. West (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 2013), 874-5, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469611099_hayden.16.
A help-wanted ad in Tennallytown Source: Evening Star, September 2, 1873
Although working for wages was less preferable than complete independence, this employment was available in Tennallytown. Earning "good wages," freedpeople were able to establish homes with their families.
During Reconstruction, Tennallytown was also an active site of political participation.
On October 6, 1871, the Evening Star recorded voter registration in the area.
These efforts demonstrate the racial diversity of Tennallytown's electorate and the voting power of African Americans.
Although all voters in the District of Columbia were effectively disenfranchised by the return of commission government in 1874, freedpeople (or at least freedmen) were able to briefly experience the rights of citizenship.
Source: Evening Star, October 6, 1871
Between the Civil War and 1880, the Reno community became increasingly entrenched within the Tennallytown neighborhood.
Community institutions formed and homes became more permanent. Empowered with land, citizenship, and (modest) opportunity, African Americans experienced the beginnings of freedom in these early years of Reno.
But there is a limit to what we know. Or what it is even possible to know.
1870 Census of Tennallytown Residents Source: "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MN43-F7K : 8 June 2019), Madison Jones, 1870.
This particular page of the 1870 Census records one black Tennallytown family: Madison Jones, with his wife Catherine, their sons Edward and George, and their "house servant," 17-year-old Georgiana Buckman. With a three-year-old son who was born in Maryland, Madison and Catherine couldn't have been in Tennallytown long by 1870. It's clear that the Jones' didn't arrive in Tennallytown until after the Civil War.
However, the family also left Tennallytown by 1880. There is no apparent record of them in the 1880 Census in the District of Columbia.
While it may be impossible to know why the Jones' left or where they went, there is still important information that we do know.
Madison Jones. 32 years old. Born in Virginia. A male citizen of the United States. A blacksmith. Unable to read or write.
Catherine Jones. 34 years old. Born in Virginia. Keeping house.
Edward Jones. 8 years old. Born in Virginia. Attended school within the last year.
George Jones. 3 years old. Born in Maryland.
Georgiana Buckman. 17 years old. Born in Virginia. A household worker. Unable to read or write.
Even if we can't know the full story of the Jones family, that doesn't diminish the fact that they have a story.
Reno's Displacement
Fort Reno during the 1920s and 1930s represented a community progressively torn apart by a federal government motivated by developers and a nearby but wholly separated community. While Reno grew during the early twentieth century, so too did Chevy Chase, a nearby affluent white suburb developed by the Chevy Chase Land Company. Throughout the 1920s, the Company and the Chevy Chase Citizens’ Association aggressively lobbied the federal government to seize Fort Reno to develop schools and a park for their use. Despite residents’ protests, in 1929 the National Capital Park and Planning Commission (NCPPC) began buying houses in Reno and threatened those who refused to sell with condemnation. Throughout the following decade, most residents and the institutions that served them dispersed throughout DC.
Source: Neil Flanagan, Judith Helm, Neil Heyden
The Reno Community at Fort Reno
While served by different institutions, white and black residents generally supported each other across racial lines and saw themselves as part of one Reno community. Part of this unity derived from the distinction the neighboring largely white and more affluent Tenleytown community liked to draw between itself and the interracial, working-class Reno community.
Community institutions played a significant role in fostering a sense of community among Reno's black residents. These institutions included three churches, a masonic lodge, and a school.
The map to the right shows the locations of these institutions and the homes of several of Reno's blacks residents in 1928, just prior to the start of removal. Click on the points to learn more about the families and institutions.
Source: Judith Helm, Reno Neighborhood History Project, US Census Bureau, US City Directories
The Reno Community Dispersed
As a result of removal, the Reno community dispersed. A broad trend emerged. While many residents owned their Reno homes, most had to rent their new ones. The compensation the NCPPC provided to residents after condemning or threatening to condemn their homes was nowhere near enough to afford comparable housing. Most black residents moved to predominantly black neighborhoods west of Rock Creek Park, reflecting the increasing segregation of DC and similar patterns of displacement in other neighborhoods.
"We are laying aside the sentimental value of our church."
The above message Rock Creek Baptist Church sent to the NCPPC in 1941 while accepting a low compensation price for their church after a prolonged fight to raise it reflects the less tangible consequences of removal. Removal did not simply uproot individual families, it uprooted a community. While the fact that community ties persisted after removal attests to the strength of the Reno community, former residents often had to begin anew in their new communities spread across DC.
The map to the right shows the locations of the same residents and the institutions that survived following removal in 1938 (unless otherwise noted). Click on the points to learn more.
Source: Neil Heyden, David Kathan, Amy Rispin, L. Paige Whitley, Reno Neighborhood History Project, US Census Bureau, US City Directories
One Family's Service through Trials and Triumphs
The Lewis family exemplifies the strength of the Reno community and service to it from its height at the turn of the century, to the fight against removal, to its dispersal to other parts of the city.
Thornton Lewis was born around 1860 in Virginia and lived in Reno as early as 1888, when he secured a liquor license for a grocery store he operated on Grant Road. At different points in his life he was a grocer, florist, and temporary laborer at the Government Printing Office.
In 1895 he married Lucy Brooks, another Reno resident originally from Virginia, and they had five children, James, Alexander, Henry, Nettie, and Carrie. They attended the Shiloh Baptist Church in Shaw, and Nettie and Carrie sang in its junior choir.
He served as President of the Reno Home and School Association and was elected Vice President of the Reno Citizens' Association (RCA) many times. During the early twentieth century, the RCA advocated against segregated streetcars and for DC suffrage, prohibition, better pay for teachers at Reno School, and street improvements in Reno. Lewis served as chairman of a committee that petitioned the DC Board of Commissioners for these street improvements.
Source: Evening Star, The Washington Post, US Census Bureau, US City Directories
Courtesy of US Census Bureau
Despite near constant advocacy by the RCA for street improvements, the DC government improved few streets in Reno while improving many in adjacent neighborhoods. Advocates for Reno's redevelopment in the 1920s used the lack of improvements as evidence of "blight" in Reno and its need to be condemned. Lewis and others gave strong testimony against these arguments at a 1926 hearing on Reno's redevelopment before the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia.
Thornton Lewis died at his home in Reno in 1927, just before the NCPPC began condemning Reno homes despite resistance by Lewis and others. Lucy Lewis later moved into the Georgetown home where she served as a domestic worker.
Source: Neil Heyden, Evening Star, The Washington Post, US Census Bureau, US City Directories
Courtesy of the Evening Star
Alexander Lewis was born around 1890 in Reno to Thornton and Lucy. He graduated from Reno School in 1910 alongside his neighbor on Dennison Pl., Eddie Dixon, son of Aaron and Helen Dixon, and both continued their education at Armstrong High School. Alexander served in WWI and later spent his career as a messenger for the Treasury Department. He also followed his father's example and served as a member of the RCA, and lived with his wife Daisy on Howard St., less than a block from his parents' home.
Alexander and Daisy were forced to leave their Reno home in 1951 during one of the final stages of removal. As countless other residents attested, he noted at the time that the compensation they were given was nowhere near enough to find comparable housing. The National Capital Housing Agency was supposed to help them find new housing, but it had 7000 families on its waiting list at the time.
The couple eventually found housing in Park View, where they remained the rest of their lives. Daisy died in 1969. Alexander became a deacon later in life and died in 1979, survived by his younger sisters Nettie and Carrie.
Source: Evening Star, The Washington Post, US Census Bureau, US City Directories
Courtesy of The Washington Post
The story of Reno in the mid-twentieth century reflects broader themes of black history in DC. Foremost is displacement. Throughout this period, the DC and federal governments seized land and homes, through the justice system if necessary but often simply through political and financial pressure, ostensibly for a public purpose. As was the case with Reno, the public that stood to benefit from this land was often white, while those who had to sacrifice their homes and communities to provide it were often black.
The story of Reno though is also one that reflects the incredible strength of communities that persisted long after displacement. While the government did succeed in removing the community from the physical location of Fort Reno, community institutions and ties played a vital part in ensuring that the Fort Reno community itself was not completely destroyed. As late as 1983, former residents gathered annually at Fort Reno Park for a reunion. As one former resident put it at that 1983 reunion:
"We're all family here."
Source: The Washington Post
About the authors.
Matthew Barak is a senior in the College at Georgetown University, majoring in government and minoring in history and sociology.
Leigh Bianchi is a junior in the College at Georgetown University, majoring in government and minoring in history and Chinese.
