History
How Bellevue was built, from DC's historic building permits, and what the newspaper said about it a hundred years ago this week.
When it was built
Buildings by decade of permitCounts by decade
| Decade | Buildings |
|---|---|
| 1900s | 6 |
| 1910s | 7 |
| 1920s | 18 |
| 1930s | 83 |
| 1940s | 799 |
| 1950s | 435 |
At a glance
Each record is one building listed on a historic DC building permit; a single permit can cover many buildings. The busiest decade is highlighted in the chart.
Top architects
Buildings designedTop builders
Buildings builtFeatured block
One builder, one yearIn 1941, D. C. Engineering Co. built 43 buildings on the 4000 block of 1st Street SW under 3 permits, designed by A. H. Sonnemann and George S. brock. The largest permit covered 24 buildings at an estimated $72,000 in total.
100 years ago this week
October 31 – November 6, 1926Mentions of Bellevue in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for Bellevue, "South Capitol street".
No clips matched this week.
No usable mentions in the Evening Star for October 31 – November 6, 1926 (2 matching pages searched). Some weeks a neighborhood just isn't in the paper. Clips are machine-read text (OCR) from scanned Evening Star pages on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, lightly cleaned (line-break hyphens rejoined, stray symbols removed); misspellings are the scanner's. Newspapers this old are public domain. Each clip links to its page at loc.gov. Clips that mention race, covenants, deed restrictions or slurs are skipped automatically (keyword list: race, races, racial, colored, coloured, negro, negroes, white only, whites only, for whites, white people, white persons, white residents, caucasian, segregation, segregated, covenant, covenants, restricted, restriction, restrictions, plus a list of slurs), because they need an editor's context; legal notices and lists of private individuals are skipped too.
Street names: where they come from
9 names, each with a source- Atlantic Street SW
An early 20th-century DC policy gave east-west streets in the city's southern half the names of notable places or geologic features. No source we opened says why this one got its name, or the others in Bellevue's run of names.
Sources: Highway Plan: Street Names of Washington, DC (DC Office of Planning) · Bellevue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia- Bellevue1795 (the house)
Named for the house Thomas Grafton Addison built on a high point after his brothers deeded him 1,200 acres in 1795. Union forces tore it down for Fort Greble. Most homes came in the 1940s, two-bedroom townhouses for Bolling Field personnel. Wikipedia is our only source for this history.
Source: Bellevue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia- Fort Greble1861
- Honors: 1st Lt. John Trout Greble
Built in late 1861 on a bluff where the Anacostia meets the Potomac, and named for the first West Point graduate killed in the Civil War. The Army gave it up in 1869. It came to the District in the late 1930s and got a playground in 1942, later a recreation center.
Sources: Fort Greble - Wikipedia · Bellevue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia - Highland Dwellings1942
The National Capital Housing Authority built these 256 units in 1942 to ease a wartime housing shortage.
Source: Washington Highlands (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia- Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SW1971
- Honors: Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader
Starts at DC's southwest tip near Blue Plains and shares a stretch with South Capitol Street. It opened as Asylum Avenue in 1855, became Nichols Avenue in 1879 for St. Elizabeths superintendent Charles Nichols, and took King's name on January 15, 1971.
Earlier: Asylum Avenue, Nichols AvenueSources: Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue - Wikipedia · Bellevue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia - South Capitol Streetextended 1940
The Army Corps of Engineers extended it in 1940 from Nichols Avenue to the District line, before most of Bellevue's houses went up. It ends at Southern Avenue, where it becomes Indian Head Highway. It splits Southeast from Southwest.
Source: South Capitol Street - Wikipedia- Walter B. Patterson Elementary School1943
Opened in 1943 in a temporary building that held more than 900 students, and parents objected to the plane noise. A permanent school opened on South Capitol Street by fall 1946. Madeline V. Leckie Elementary took the old site in 1970. No source we opened says who Patterson was.
Source: Bellevue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia- Washington Highlands1904
Named for the city and its hills. Developers began laying it out in 1904, and residents formed a citizens association by 1925.
Source: Washington Highlands (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia- William O. Lockridge/Bellevue Library2012
- Honors: William O. Lockridge, local activist
A $15 million replacement for the Washington Highlands Library, designed by David Adjaye and opened June 13, 2012. The library board named it Bellevue, and the Council later added Lockridge's name.
Earlier: Washington Highlands LibrarySources: Bellevue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia · Ten Facts You May Not Know About Hillcrest (DCist, 2019)
Still looking for a reliable source on Barnaby Road SE, Barnaby Street SE, Bonini Road SE, Brandywine Place SW, Brandywine Street SE, Brandywine Street SW, Chesapeake Street SE, Chesapeake Street SW, Danbury Street SE, Danbury Street SW, Darrington Street SE, Darrington Street SW, Elmira Street SE, Elmira Street SW, Forrester Street SE, Forrester Street SW, Galveston Place SE, Galveston Street SE, Galveston Street SW, Halley Terrace SE, Livingston Road SE, Livingston Terrace SE, Old Livingston Road SE, South Capitol Terrace SW, Southern Avenue SE, Xenia Street SW. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.
Neighborhood voices
Oral histories, held by the archivesWe haven't found a recorded oral history about Bellevue in a public archive yet.
Search the archives yourself: The People's Archive, DC Public Library · Historic Chevy Chase DC Oral History Archive · Humanities Truck Community Archive, American University · Tenleytown Historical Society · Boundary Stones (WETA) · Glover Park History: Oral History and Reminiscences · Cleveland Park Historical Society Oral Histories · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · hometown DC (DC History Center) · Hola Cultura: Adams Morgan History · Citizens Association of Georgetown · Peabody Room, Georgetown Neighborhood Library (DC Public Library) · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Archives: A Right to the City Exhibition Records · Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Mosaic Theater H Street Oral History Project · Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library · The Catholic University of America Archives · Bygone Brookland · Dig DC, DC Public Library · hometown DC (HumanitiesDC / Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) · Dig DC, DC Public Library's digital repository · A Right to the City exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · Palisades Community Association · Forest Hills Connection (neighborhood history series) · Foggy Bottom Association History Project: Oral Histories · George Washington University Special Collections Research Center · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past · Empower DC: Ivy City · Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience (Dig DC) · Gallaudet University Archives. Summaries are ours; the recordings and their rights stay with each archive.