Holmeads’ Legacy MONROE and 13TH STREETS NW
This s po t o nce w a s the center of the Holmead family estate, “Pleasant Plains.” The property stretched from today’s Spring Road to Columbia Road, and from Georgia Avenue to Rock Creek. In 1 74 0 the Holmeads built a house near here. In 1 8 20 , two years after Congress arrived in Washington, Col. John Tayloe leased land from the Holmeads to open the city’s second racetrack (the first was walking distance from the White House where the Organization of American States is today on Constitution Avenue, NW). Congress regularly recessed to make post time at the one- mile track, which extended from today’s 01 th to 1 6th Streets, bordered on the south by Tayloe’s Lane, now Columbia Road. During the 1 8 00 s Holmead descendents gradually sold off Pleasant Plains. In 1 883 William and Mary Holmead laid out Holmead Manor, with 50 -foot-wide building lots. For themselves they built a large house at 3 51 7 1 3th Street. That struc- ture remains today, adapted for apartments. Its original carriage house remains, as well, tucked into the alley behind the house. In 1 9 0 9, shortly after 11 th Street was built, the Anacostia & Potomac River Railroad’s 11 th Street line ended at Monroe Street. Added to existing lines on Georgia Avenue and 1 4th Street, the new line made this DC’s best-served “streetcar suburb.” At 11 th and Monroe is a small park where, until 1 96 1 , streetcars turned around to head back downtown.
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