Glen Echo Park

Glen Echo Park in Maryland evolved from an 1891 Chautauqua founded by Edwin and Edward Baltzley into a major Washington-area amusement park after streetcar service arrived in 1897, then into a public arts and cultural center operated by the National Park Service. Clara Barton made her home and the American Red Cross headquarters there, and later the site became important in civil rights history when Howard University students and Bannockburn neighbors protested segregation in 1960, helping bring integration in 1961 and a Supreme Court ruling in Griffin v. Maryland. After the amusement park closed in 1968, the federal government acquired the property and reopened it for public cultural use.

Glen Echo, Maryland · United States