Theodore Roosevelt Island
Theodore Roosevelt Island is an 88.5-acre (358,000 m2) island and national memorial located in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.[2][3] During the Civil War, it was used as a training camp for the United States Colored Troops. The island was given to the federal government by the Theodore Roosevelt Association in memory of the 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. Until then, the island had been known as My Lord's Island, Barbadoes Island, Mason's Island, Analostan Island, and Anacostine Island.[4]
For other uses, see Roosevelt Island (disambiguation).Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial
The Potomac River in Washington, D.C., U.S.
88.5 acres (35.8 ha)
44 feet (13 m)
May 21, 1932
160,000 (in 2015 [1])
The island is maintained by the National Park Service, as part of the nearby George Washington Memorial Parkway.[3] The land is generally maintained as a natural park, with various trails and a memorial plaza featuring a statue of Roosevelt. No cars or bicycles are permitted on the island, which is reached by a footbridge from Arlington, Virginia, on the western bank of the Potomac.
According to the National Park Service: "In the 1930s landscape architects transformed Mason’s Island from neglected, overgrown farmland into Theodore Roosevelt Island, a memorial to America’s 26th president. They conceived a 'real forest' designed to mimic the natural forest that once covered the island. Today miles of trails through wooded uplands and swampy bottomlands honor the legacy of a great outdoorsman and conservationist."[5]
A small island, Little Island, lies just off the southern tip; Georgetown and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts are respectively across the main channel of the Potomac to the north and the east.
History[edit]
Early history[edit]
The Nacotchtank Indians, formerly of what is now Anacostia (in Washington, D.C.), temporarily moved to the island in 1668, giving its first recorded name, "Anacostine". The island was patented in 1682 as Anacostine Island by Captain Randolph Brandt (or Brunett), who left the island to his daughter Margaret Hammersley, upon his death in 1698 or 1699.[6][7]
Mason, Carter, and Bradley families[edit]
The island was acquired by George Mason III in 1724.[8] George Mason IV (then underage) inherited the island in 1735 upon the death of his father, and a ferry from the Virginia shore across the Potomac to Georgetown (the "Little River" and mouth of Rock Creek) was moved from Awbrey's land to Mason's island in 1748.[9] His son and executor John Mason, inherited the island as the century ended,[6] pursuant to a 1773 will presented to the Fairfax County Circuit court in 1792 by his brother George Mason V, who died in 1796 so he and his other living brother, Thomas Mason, succeeded as their father's executors.