Natural by Design

As a young man, Theodore Roosevelt recognized that America's natural resources, including dense forests, vast grasslands, mineral deposits, and watersheds, were being consumed by a growing nation, and his efforts to secure federal protection for them later influenced plans for this island landscape. First Peoples had lived in this area centuries earlier, when the island, then known as Analostan Island, provided fish, animals, and waterfowl for the Nacotchtank tribe until the early 1700s. Between 1717 and 1833, the Mason family of Virginia established a ferry business here and later a plantation, with their mansion becoming the centerpiece of what was then called Mason's Island. In the 1930s, Frederick, Law Olmsted, Jr. and Henry V. Hubbard planned a sanctuary for animals and native forest where automobiles would not interrupt the scene, and in 1935 Civilian Conservation Corps workers cleared nonnative vegetation and planted native hardwood trees under plans developed by the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, creating the mature natural environment of Theodore Roosevelt Island, with trails through swamp, wooded, and upland settings designed to appear natural.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States