History

Mentions of Palisades in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Conduit road", "Chain Bridge", Palisades.

Clips are machine-read text (OCR) from scanned Evening Star pages on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, lightly cleaned (line-break hyphens rejoined, stray symbols removed); misspellings are the scanner's. Newspapers this old are public domain. Each clip links to its page at loc.gov. Clips that mention race, covenants, deed restrictions or slurs are skipped automatically (keyword list: race, races, racial, colored, coloured, negro, negroes, white only, whites only, for whites, white people, white persons, white residents, caucasian, segregation, segregated, covenant, covenants, restricted, restriction, restrictions, plus a list of slurs), because they need an editor's context; legal notices and lists of private individuals are skipped too.

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  Chain Bridge · [between 1861 and 1869]Washington, District of Columbia. Chain bridge
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  Chain Bridge & C&O Canal · [1865][Washington, D.C. Chain Bridge over the Potomac; Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in foreground]
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  Chain Bridge & C&O Canal · [between 1909 and 1923]Chain Bridge, C&O Canal
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  Fletcher's Cove, C&O Canal · [between 1909 and 1920][Group disembarking from a rowboat along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal near the Abner Cloud House at Fletcher's Cove, Georgetown, D.C.]
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  Canal Rd & Reservoir Rd NW · after 1933Abner Cloud House, Intersection of Canal Road & Reservoir Road Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC
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  Conduit Road · 1940 SeptWaterworks on Conduit Road, Washington, D.C.

Photographs from the Library of Congress (Civil war photographs, 1861-1865; National Photo Company Collection; Historic American Buildings Survey; Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection), each with no known restrictions on publication or in the public domain, per the Library. Titles are the Library's, written when the photos were catalogued; some use the language of their time. Each links to its record.

Arizona Avenue NW1954

Honors: State of Arizona

In 1947 Arizona Senator Carl Hayden proposed a four-lane Arizona Avenue through Glover-Archbold Park; it was never built. Instead, Weaver Street and Weaver Place were renamed Arizona Avenue in 1954 at the suggestion of the American University Park Citizens' Association. It runs from Canal Road to Loughboro Road.

Earlier: Weaver Street, Weaver PlaceSources: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia · History (Palisades Community Association)

Battery Kemble Park1861 (battery)

Honors: Gouverneur Kemble, superintendent of the West Point Foundry

The park keeps the earthworks of Battery Kemble, a Union gun position finished in autumn 1861 whose two 100-pounder Parrott rifles covered Chain Bridge and Virginia. It was named for Gouverneur Kemble of Cold Spring, New York, whose West Point Foundry made most of the Union's heavy guns.

Source: Battery Kemble Park - Wikipedia

Clara Barton Parkway

Honors: Clara Barton, Civil War nurse and founder of the American Red Cross

The parkway follows the Potomac into Maryland, passing Clara Barton's Glen Echo home. Washingtonian featured it in 2021 among the National Portrait Gallery's 'Block by Block: Naming Washington' picks pairing local places with the people they honor.

Source: Do You Know Who Your DC Street Is Named After? (Washingtonian, 2021)

Foxhall Road NW

Honors: Henry Foxall, Georgetown mayor and cannon founder

The neighborhood association to the south says Foxhall Road and Foxhall Village are named for Henry Foxall, a Georgetown mayor whose cannon foundry stood on Foundry Creek in today's Glover Archbold Park. A spelling error on an early sign is credited with turning Foxall into Foxhall.

Sources: History (Foxhall Community Citizens Association) · Henry Foxall - Wikipedia

MacArthur Boulevard NW1942

Honors: General Douglas MacArthur

It began as Conduit Road, the service road above Montgomery Meigs's Washington Aqueduct conduit, which first carried Potomac water into the city in 1859. Residents had long disliked the utilitarian name. Roosevelt signed the renaming bill on March 5, 1942, while MacArthur was still defending Corregidor.

Earlier: Conduit RoadSources: Conduit Road Becomes MacArthur Boulevard: The 1942 Renaming (Ghosts of DC) · History (Palisades Community Association)

Nebraska Avenue NW1906

Honors: State of Nebraska

One of DC's state-named avenues; it runs from Oregon Avenue past American University and becomes Loughboro Road at Chain Bridge Road. Wikipedia's list says it was named Chain Bridge Road until 1906, and the Battery Kemble article places the Civil War battery on Ridge Road, now Nebraska Avenue.

Earlier: Chain Bridge Road, Ridge RoadSources: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia · Battery Kemble Park - Wikipedia

Sherier Place NW

Honors: The Sherier family, descendants of settler Conrad Sherier

Conrad Sherier bought a farmhouse here in 1850, and his sons Mike and John farmed along lower Chain Bridge Road. The association's history says Sherier Place cut through their lands, and that somehow an extra letter 'r' crept into the street's name.

Source: History (Palisades Community Association)

The Palisades1890 (land company advertisement); subdivision laid out 1893

The name was a real-estate brand: the Palisades of the Potomac Land Improvement Company advertised lots here in June 1890 as a coming fashionable suburb reached by Conduit Road, electric railway and boat. Wikipedia dates the subdivision's layout to 1893; streetcars to Georgetown and Glen Echo followed two years later.

Sources: Palisades of the Potomac: An 1890 Real Estate Advertisement (Ghosts of DC) · The Palisades (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia

Weaver Terrace NW

Honors: The Weaver family, 1850s Palisades farmers

The Palisades Community Association's history says the Weaver brothers bought farmland here in the 1850s and there were so many Weavers that three streets bore their name. One became Arizona Avenue; Weaver Terrace is the reminder that remains.

Source: History (Palisades Community Association, prepared 1956, updated 1966)

Still looking for a reliable source on Chain Bridge Road NW, Canal Road NW, Loughboro Road NW, Reservoir Road NW, Dalecarlia Parkway NW, Whitehaven Parkway NW, Galena Place NW, Dana Place NW, Potomac Avenue NW. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.

• History of the Palisades Community Association1956 · article · remembers the 1850s, 1860s, 1950s, 1960s

  A community history written for the association's 40th anniversary in 1956 and updated for its 50th in 1966, drawing on old families' memories: the Weaver, Sherier and Boyle farms, soldiers from Battery Kemble raiding a farmhouse, freed families given land on Chain Bridge Road, and descendants still living locally in the 1960s.

  At Palisades Community Association (founded 1916 as the Conduit Road Citizens Association) · farm families, Civil War, Conduit Road, citizens association

Search the archives yourself: The People's Archive, DC Public Library · Historic Chevy Chase DC Oral History Archive · Humanities Truck Community Archive, American University · Tenleytown Historical Society · Boundary Stones (WETA) · Glover Park History: Oral History and Reminiscences · Cleveland Park Historical Society Oral Histories · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · hometown DC (DC History Center) · Hola Cultura: Adams Morgan History · Citizens Association of Georgetown · Peabody Room, Georgetown Neighborhood Library (DC Public Library) · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Archives: A Right to the City Exhibition Records · Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Mosaic Theater H Street Oral History Project · Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library · The Catholic University of America Archives · Bygone Brookland · Dig DC, DC Public Library · hometown DC (HumanitiesDC / Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) · Dig DC, DC Public Library's digital repository · A Right to the City exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · Palisades Community Association · Forest Hills Connection (neighborhood history series) · Foggy Bottom Association History Project: Oral Histories · George Washington University Special Collections Research Center · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past · Empower DC: Ivy City · Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience (Dig DC) · Gallaudet University Archives. Summaries are ours; the recordings and their rights stay with each archive.

• DC Historic Preservation Office, Historic Data on DC Buildings (HistoryQuest), CC BY 4.0
• Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Chronicling America, Library of Congress; public domain

History data refreshed Nov 2.