The Seventh Street Turnpike

On July 11 and 12, 1864, this intersection was the center of the only Civil War battle fought in the District of Columbia, where Union sharpshooters at Fort Stevens, supported by forces across the northernmost of Washington's ring of forts, stopped General Jubal A. Early's Rebels as Early attacked from the north along the Seventh Street Turnpike and the Georgetown Turnpike, now Georgia and Wisconsin avenues. Completed in 1822 as a dirt road connecting the Potomac River to Rockville, Maryland, the Seventh Street Turnpike soon grew deeply rutted, and in 1852 it was paved with wood planks to create an eight-foot-wide surface. Although the planks sank in the mud, the road accommodated scores each day. The road's private owners placed a toll booth just north of Emory Church, prompting Brightwood residents to create a free bypass, essentially today's Piney Branch Road. In 1871 the city acquired the turnpike, abolished the toll, changed the name to Seventh Street Road, and paved it with macadam, a layer of crushed rock and cement. In the late 1880s Brightwood citizens arranged to rename the road Brightwood Avenue. In 1909 residents traded the naming rights to Georgia Senator Augustus Bacon in exchange for his support for community improvements. Bacon was irritated that Georgia Avenue in 1900 applied to a few disheveled blocks near the Navy Yard and wanted a grander thoroughfare to honor his state. By the 1930s, as the neighborhood filled with family housing, children enjoyed pony rides on a lot here, churches held carnivals, and across the intersection stood a miniature golf course.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States