Cleaning up Cowtown georgia avenue and barry place nw
Before 1871, this area was an Irish and German immigrant neighborhood known as “Cowtown.” That’s because cows, pigs, and sheep roamed freely here, while those kept in Washington City, south of Boundary Street (today’s Florida Avenue), had to be penned. A stream bordering Sherman Avenue carried away the reeking refuse from Cowtown’s slaughterhouses. While the livestock and slaughterhouses eventually left, the low-income, multi-ethnic neighborhood’s poor reputation remained. Odessa Marie Madre, DC’s own “Al Capone,” grew up here and later ran a Cowtown “jill joint” selling bootleg liquor. By the 1940s juvenile gangs known as the “Bonecrushers” and “Fifth Street Tigers” committed not-so-petty crimes. Then local police officer Oliver Cowan created the Junior Police and Citizen Corps, so youth could “solve its own problems.” Unlike the segregated Boys’ Clubs and Boy Scouts, the Corps encouraged interracial friendships and included girls. Juvenile arrests dropped dramatically. From the 1880s to the 1950s, Garfield Hospital stood just west of here. Garfield Terrace, DC’s first public housing designed for elderly residents, replaced the hospital in 1965, bringing innovative wheelchair-accessible foot paths and community kitchens. Corby Brothers Bakery opened across Georgia Avenue in 1911. Charles and William Corby grew very rich after inventing machines and processes that revolutionized baking and led to mass distribution of bread. Eventually Continental Baking Co. bought out the Corbys, and the factory turned to making Wonder Bread. Howard University then bought and adapted the old plant for offices and shops.
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