Clara Barton Parkway: Cultural Landscape Inventory, George Washington Memorial Parkway, National Park Service

Kelsch, Paul; Dehmlow, David; Perry, Dean

The cultural landscape of the Clara Barton Parkway comprises a total of 280 acres along the Maryland side of the Potomac River. It is a component landscape of the George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP) that is 6.8 miles long, running from MacArthur Boulevard in Carderock, Maryland east to Canal Road at the Chain Bridge in Washington DC. It was constructed as part of the GWMP, which was proposed to run on both sides of the river in two segments; from Mount Vernon, Virginia and Fort Washington, Maryland, respectively, to a point in the vicinity of Great Falls, near which the two segments of the parkway were to be connected by a bridge over the river. The segment known today as the Clara Barton Parkway was the last section built and the only section constructed in Maryland. Having parkways named George Washington Memorial Parkway on both the Virginia and Maryland sides of the river caused confusion among motorists, so the road on the Maryland side was rechristened Clara Barton Parkway in 1989 in honor of the Red Cross founder who had lived on the bluffs above the parkway about seventy‑five years earlier. This CLI examines the parkway landscape as part of that larger project, comparing this segment at times to the original Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, which runs from Arlington Memorial Bridge south to Mount Vernon, and to the GWMP‑North, which runs from Arlington Memorial Bridge north to the Capital Beltway. The Clara Barton Parkway is representative of the larger parkway project in that it also was not completed as planned and designed. The design for the eastern third of the parkway utilized a streetcar right‑of‑way for part of its alignment, and this right‑of‑way was not acquired until long after construction had been suspended. As a result, the eastern third of the parkway has a different character from the rest of the parkway. Furthermore, an additional parkway, the Palisades Parkway, was to have continued the GWMP from the Maryland/DC border into Washington, but construction of that parkway was halted due to rising public sentiment against building more highways along the river. Today, if one were to travel from Mount Vernon up the George Washington Memorial Parkway to the Capital Beltway, cross the river on the American Legion Bridge, and begin a return trip downriver on the Clara Barton Parkway, one can approximate the intended experience of the full parkway. However, after passing Glen Echo partway down the Clara Barton Parkway, the divided roadway and park‑like character ends, and eventually the parkway tapers out to a two‑lane road and feeds into the historic Canal Road. In this last section, the parkway exhibits more of the characteristics of Canal Road than it does with the rest of the GWMP. Thus the Clara Barton Parkway stands as a literal and symbolic reminder of both the vision of the George Washington Memorial Parkway transforming thirty miles of the Potomac River into a commemorative, scenic and recreational landscape, and also the rising public resistance to the idea of lining the river with roadways regardless of their scenic and recreational merits.

Clara Barton Parkway: Cultural Landscape Inventory, George Washington Memorial Parkway, National Park Service

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