Columbia Island Improvements – Washington DC

Description

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) did extensive improvements on Columbia Island in 1934-35. Construction of Memorial Bridge and the George Washington Parkway had made the island more accessible in the late 1920s. 

A  HABS Survey describes the CCC’s work:

“The CCC enrollees were responsible for cleaning up debris, clearing, grading, selective cutting, topsoiling, and seeding and sodding the open areas located between the waterways and various roadways, a large part of which was completed between October 1934 and March 1935. 

CCC Camp NP-6-VA (Fort Hunt) also rip rapped the island’s southeastern shoreline along the Potomac River, a sea wall meant to lessen the effects of water erosion…The enrollees also created an eight-foot-wide bridle path extending from Memorial Bridge and terminating six miles downstream in Alexandria.”

Today, Columbia Island is home to Lady Bird Johnson Park, Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove, and the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial and has been subject to considerable alteration since the 1930s. 

Nevertheless, the sea wall along the Potomac River probably includes CCC stone work; the bridle path is now a paved biking/jogging trail; some of the stone retaining wall along the trail is likely CCC in origin.