Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling: Bolling Field (former) Officers’ Mess and Quarters – Washington DC

Description

The present Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling is the site of the former Anacostia US Naval Air Station and the former Bolling Air Field, both founded in 1918.  Bolling Field was absorbed into the Naval Air Station in the 1940s and a new Bolling Air Force Base constructed just to the south in 1948.  Those facilities were merged again in 2010, and the joint base is currently home to several functions, including a naval facility, a large heliport and a Secret Service base.  

New Deal agencies were busy at the two older facilities, making improvements of various kinds.  In 1933-34, the Public Works Administration (PWA) provided the funding for officers’ homes and the officers’ mess at Bolling Field.

Short and Stanley-Brown describe PWA work on the site:

“One of the construction projects undertaken by the Quartermaster Corps of the Army consisted of a group of houses at Bolling Field to accommodate 2 field officers and 11 company officers and their families and also an officers’ mess. The houses are all similar and include living room, dining room, kitchen, maid’s room, 4 bedrooms, and baths. The officers’ mess contains an office, kitchen, pantries, officers’ mess room, a lounge, a dormitory, and 5 bedrooms. The houses are brick with wood trim and slate roofs. The mess hall is stone ashlar to the first floor level, brick with stone trim above, and has a slate roof. The houses were completed in October 1934 at a project cost of $148,000. The mess hall was completed at the same time at a project cost of $54,951.”

Current status of these buildings is unknown.