“We’re Not Forgotten” MINNESOTA AVEnue & GRANT STreet NE
Formerly known as the Bladensburg- Piscataway Road, Minnesota Avenue has long served as an eastern gateway into Washington. Since the original wooden Benning Road Bridge was erected nearby in 1800, countless people have crossed the Anacostia River here. During the Civil War (1861–1865), Fort Mahan, named for U.S. Military Academy Professor Dennis Mahan, defended this entry point against Confederate attack. From checkpoints at the foot of the bridge Union soldiers searched the wagons of everyone entering the city. By the early 1970s, brightly painted shops and markets operated here. Yet the nearby junkyard, numerous boarded-up buildings, vacant lots, and electric power plant smokestacks gave the area a bleak feeling. Many local merchants and residents, unable to attract support of area banks, believed that city officials would never show interest in this long-neglected section. Things changed when the Washington Metropoli- tan Area Transit Authority began construction on Metro’s Orange Line, linking Vienna, Virginia, with New Carrollton, Maryland, through here. Deanwood stood to benefit from a new, quicker trip downtown. When the Minnesota Avenue Metrorail station, and the nearby Deanwood sta- tion, opened in November 1978, residents saw the dawning of a new day. “We’re not forgotten any longer,” one told a newspaper reporter. “We’ve got Metro.” The Metro station was once the site of Benning Elementary School, established in 1883 for the area’s white children under the city’s segregated public school system. The school closed in 1952.
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