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Glen Echo is a quiet
residential town three miles northwest of Washington, D.C. It
has grown gracefully there along the Potomac River and the C&O
Canal since the very earliest days of the 20th century.
The town’s name is better known, however, for the amusement
park that flourished there from 1911 to 1968. The famous
Dentzell Carousel arrived in 1921, and the Spanish Ballroom and
Crystal Pool in the . ’30s. The electric bumper cars were always
a favorite attraction. Glen Echo Amusement Park saw its heyday
during World War II, when there was a large number of service
men and women in the area. They would travel from Union Station
by trolley or from Georgetown along the C&O Canal.
When the amusement park closed in 1968, a victim of changing
tastes, the land and the remnants of some of the buildings
became unused. But, by the action of public-spirited citizens,
the land was acquired by the federal government in 1971 and
assigned to the National Park Service to protect the Potomac
Palisades, the C&O Canal National Historic Park, and George
Washington Memorial Parkway from unseemly development at the
site. With the cooperation of government and private sectors,
Glen Echo Park was established as an educational and cultural
forum where artists, students, teachers, and visitors could meet
and exchange ideas. The Dentzell Carousel was repurchased and
returned to the Park as the core of a revitalized entertainment
area.
The restoration and enhancement of the Park as a center for
cultural, educational, and entertainment pursuits is now
spearheaded by the Glen Echo Park Foundation. This use comes
full circle to the site’s brief hosting of a Chautauqua Assembly
in 1891. That endeavor “to promote liberal and practical
education, especially among the masses” came to a quick end
because of a malaria scare (unfounded).
Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross in 1881,
located the headquarters of the organization in her home in Glen
Echo from 1897 to 1904. It was named a National Historic Site in
1975.
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