Lady Bird Johnson Park: Cultural Landscape Inventory, George Washington Memorial Parkway - Lady Bird Johnson Park, National Park Service

Earley, Judith; Fanning, Kay

Lady Bird Johnson Park is a constructed 157-acre island that extends along the Virginia shore of the Potomac River. The island lies within the boundary of the District of Columbia and is administered by the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Originally known as Columbia Island, the island was created between about 1915 and 1930 to serve as the western terminus of Arlington Memorial Bridge and a symbolic entrance into Nation’s Capital. A traffic circle, known as Memorial Circle, marks the intersection of the bridge axis with two roadways, Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, completed mostly by 1932 and running between Arlington Memorial Bridge and Mount Vernon, and George Washington Memorial Parkway, completed in 1965, and extending from Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Capital Beltway, I-495. Two pairs of classical pylons flank Memorial Circle on the east and west, framing the entrances to Arlington Memorial Bridge and Memorial Avenue. The Mount Vernon Trail. The island is traversed by a complex system of roadways that include ten bridges, many of them faced with granite. Most of the island’s landscape is a simple, modern design based on picturesque landscape aesthetics. Much of the terrain is undulating and covered with lawns. Groupings of deciduous and evergreen trees frame and define views for motorists and pedestrians. Numerous native tree species have been retained. The western boundary of the island is defined by two constructed water features. The narrow Boundary Channel flows from the river at the north end of the island, passing between the island and the Virginia shore and emptying at the south into the artificial lagoon called Columbia Lagoon. The flow of the channel reverses during the incoming tide. The small Columbia Marina is situated on the eastern shore of the basin, opposite the Pentagon. The Navy-Marine Memorial, an aluminum sculpture depicting sea gulls flying over a curling wave, was designed to honor sailors lost at sea in the 1920s. A component landscape, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac, was built in the 1970s in memory of the late president. The Memorial Grove juxtaposes a secluded meadow, with a white pine grove surrounding an open plaza containing a large stone monolith. No extensive landscaping was carried out on the island until the 1950s. In the intervening decades a native riparian growth became established, particularly along the shorelines. A succession of landscaping and development plans were prepared for the island over the years. About 75 flowering trees were planted along Mount Vernon Memorial Highway on the south end of the island in the early 1930s, and grass was seeded for lawns. However, it was not until the 1960s that landscaping of the entire island was undertaken under the Johnson administration’s Beautification Program and a planting plan developed by landscape architect Edward D. Stone, Jr. Large drifts of daffodils and massed flowering dogwoods and other trees were planted, with initial planting efforts focused on developing the area around Memorial Circle. Over the last 30 years the Stone plan has been implemented in phases. Thousands of the original dogwoods have been lost, and daffodil beds have been altered and thinned. Locally native species of trees of similar character have been substituted for some that have failed to thrive. The island’s Period of Significance has been defined as extending from 1915, the year when deposition of dredged material for the island is believed to have begun, to 1979, the date of the last known revision of the planting plan developed by landscape architect Edward D. Stone, Jr., and implemented in phases by NPS. This period includes construction of the island and all its major features, including roads, bridges, and the two memorials; and the Beautification Program (1964-1968) and conception and initial implementation of the Stone planting plan, developed under the Beautification Program.

Lady Bird Johnson Park: Cultural Landscape Inventory, George Washington Memorial Parkway - Lady Bird Johnson Park, National Park Service

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