Washington, D.C.’s New Downtown Heritage Trail

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seventh Street, Indiana and Pennsylvania Avenues, NW — in May 1865, citizens of
Washington stood on this spot and witnessed the Grand Review of the Union armies. On July 2, from this spot the
District of Columbia launched what it hopes will be another parade — a stream of tourists walking through the
city’s historic off-the-Mall neighborhoods in response to a new series of historic markers.

The DC Heritage Tourism Coalition and the Downtown DC Business Improvement District, with Washington
Mayor Anthony Williams and Civil War historian Edwin Bearss, launched "Civil War to Civil Rights," the city’s
first marked heritage trail. Williams pledged local and federal highway enhancement funds to expand the heritage trail
program to historic neighborhoods.

Civil War to Civil Rights highlights little-known sites that link the history of the city to the history of the
nation. The trail focuses on Washington’s experiences in the Civil War as well as the continuing challenge to realize
the American dream of equal rights for all its citizens.

For the first time, the alley down which John Wilkes Booth escaped after assassinating President Lincoln, a pre-
Civil War building where poet Walt Whitman nursed the wounded, and the hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
put the finishing touches on his "I Have a Dream" speech are marked and described.

"Downtown Washington, D.C., still echoes with the footsteps of Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, thousands of
African Americans seeking freedom, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and citizens who flooded the city between
1860 and 1865," says coalition executive director Kathryn Schneider Smith.

Organized in three distinct loops, Civil War to Civil Rights is marked with 21 distinctive signs featuring
historical photographs and extended captions.

The Center Loop includes such Civil War sites as the memorial to the Grand Army of the Republic’s founder, Dr.
Benjamin F. Stephenson, Mathew Brady’s studio, Clara Barton’s residence and office, the office of the abolitionist
newspaper National Era.

The Church of the Epiphany which was used as a hospital, the Willard Hotel and Treasury Building are included on
the West Loop walk. The East Loop features the Pension Building with its Civil War frieze, Mary Surratt’s boarding
house, and the Old City Hall where the Emancipation Commission met to determine compensation for District of
Columbia slave owners when Lincoln ended slavery in the district eight months before the Emancipation
Proclamation.

A 96-page illustrated companion guidebook, Civil War to Civil Rights: Washington’s Downtown Heritage
Trail by project manager Richard Busch, is available for purchase at book outlets along the trail. Its map
illustrates the three trail loops that each take an hour to walk, while photos and text describe the 21 sites. The
guidebook also includes other sites and buildings of historic interest which the tours pass.

Civil War to Civil Rights is the first in a series of historic trail markers being produced by the Coalition and the
Downtown DC Business Improvement District in a public/private partnership with city agencies, federal founders,
private business investors, and local historical and neighborhood organizations.

All of the heritage trails planned for the city’s neighborhoods are designed for easy access via Metro stations or
Metros lines. In a recent survey, the Travel Industry Association concluded that 61 percent of Washington’s 11
million leisure travelers come because they are interested in American history and culture, yet they see only a
fraction of what Washington has to offer. The new trail seeks to change this.
For information visit www.dcheritage.org.