A President's Island Memorial - Theodore Roosevelt Island

A President’s Island Memorial - Theodore Roosevelt Island

Type of Exercise: Cycling/Biking
Biking Stats:
Distance: 31.54 mi
Duration: 2 hr 41 mins

I’m so very excited to share with you my favorite presidential memorial in DC. It sits in the middle of the Potomac River between Rosslyn, VA and Georgetown, and it is absolutely perfect for enshrining its subject, Theodore Roosevelt.

Let’s start from the beginning…

This morning came extra early, because I knew this would be my longest ride to-date. I roused, made breakfast for myself and my wife, and then I ran straight out the door to get on my bike. I was in such a hurry to get going, that I left my bike lock behind. Unfortunately, I had not noticed this until 1.5 miles into the ride! So I turned around and circled back for an additional 3 miles tacked onto my trip!

I was going to need the bike lock this morning, because bikes are prohibited on Theodore Roosevelt Island. You must lock up your bike in Virginia, before traveling across a foot-bridge to the island. That foot-bridge is the only means of access to the small wooded landmass in the middle of the river. No bicycles and no motor vehicles.

The trip up was mostly uneventful. Although, on my way to the trail, I was cutoff by a fox running across the street from one house to another. Once on the trail, I had a few ducks chase me as they flew up and of the Potomac River just South of Alexandria near the Wilson Bridge.

I greeted some construction workers, who were working on the Memorial Bridge, and I stopped to take some gorgeous pictures of the Lincoln Memorial, lined-up across the river with the Washington Monument.

Just a mile further, and I was at the parking lot for Theodore Roosevelt Island…

The Island has been around for quite a while! It is known that the Nacotchtank natives occupied the island for a time in the late 1600’s. The tribe also inhabited the nearby Anacostia area (along and near the river in SE DC) and this gave the island it’s first known name, “Anacostine.”

When European colonists showed up on the scene (we know how that eventually went) it passed through the usual routine ownership chain. It went from a military officer to an influential businessman and was passed through family. That influential businessman was…get ready for it…George Mason III. He was the father of George Mason IV, the man who was one of the founding fathers of the US. He is also the man, who used to own the land my house sits on, and he was practically the neighbor of George and Martha Washington.

Anyway, back then, this island was not the marshy sylvan wonderland that it is today! There were some trees on the island, but the land was not as tended to. The Masons built a mansion on the island, fitting a pattern common it seems of wealthy families when they acquire land. They planted gardens and cultivated some of the land for farming, when finally it was abandoned after the water there stagnated around the island from a causeway. During the civil war, the island was the camp for the 1st United States Colored Infantry, a unit made up of black enlisted men, many of whom were escaped slaves. On official documents, these men are listed as “contrabands.” The island had all the facilities necessary for military life including: quarters for soldiers (“contraband quarters”), a teacher, superintendent, surgeon, a community store, a hospital, a laundry, a stable, a guard house, an ice house, and a school house. There was also a building labelled as being for “lunatic patients and attendant.”

After the war, a university chemist used the island to secretly test explosives (as secret as you can be, I suppose) for rapid entrenchment and mining. This happened around the time of the war against Spain, and so there was suspicion of Spanish spying when the island was found to have explosives and detonators buried there.

The land was sold then through various hands, eventually winding up in the ownership of the Washington Gas Light (WGL) Company. This company still exists today and is the parent company to Washington Gas, which provides all of DC and much of VA and MD. They let the land sit and become completely overgrown until it got bought up by the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association in 1931. The association lobbied congress to fund a memorial to Roosevelt on the island, and then held the land for 30 years while waiting for congress to appropriate the funds! The memorial was finally completed and dedicated in 1967! The actual memorial is a large stone plaza in the middle of the island, which contains a large circular reflecting pool split in half by large stone bridges, a statue, and two large fountains. You can tell from the pictures below that the fountains bear the seal of the president of the United States. A 17 foot tall statue of Theodore Roosevelt stands in the middle of the stone plaza, and behind Roosevelt are large monoliths with quotes from the president on the following topics: Manhood, Nature, Youth, and the State. There is a trail system that takes you around the entire island and through various habitats on the island. There are waysides describing these habitats (if they are not scratched up by now).

The island isn’t normally very busy. It HAS grown busier over the years that I’ve lived here as more and more people learn of this hidden DC gem, but this morning, there was not a soul ON the plaza. There were a few people out for a run/hike on the island, but they were around the memorial portion and mostly out of sight. I had the opportunity to take as many pictures as I liked, from whatever vantage I desired without tourists breathing down my neck. It was NICE!

I looked at my watch, and realized that I needed to beat it in order to get home and log into work. So I clack-walked my way back across the long foot-bridge in my bike shoes, unlocked Ghost (that’s my bike’s name…and brand), and got to speeding back home.

Thanks for coming along with me to my favorite spot in DC!