Kingman Island (also known as Burnham Barrier) and Heritage Island are islands in Northeast and Southeast Washington, D.C., in the Anacostia River. Both islands are man-made, built from material dredged from the Anacostia River and completed in 1916. Kingman Island is bordered on the east by the Anacostia River, and on the west by Kingman Lake. Heritage Island is surrounded by Kingman Lake. Both islands were federally owned property managed by the National Park Service until 1995. They are currently owned by the D.C. government, and managed by Living Classrooms National Capital Region. Kingman Island is bisected by Benning Road and the Ethel Kennedy Bridge, with the southern half of the island bisected again by East Capitol Street and the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge. As of 2010, Langston Golf Course occupied the northern half of Kingman Island, while the southern half of Kingman Island and all of Heritage Island remained largely undeveloped. Kingman Island, Kingman Lake and nearby Kingman Park are named after Brigadier General Dan Christie Kingman, the former head of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
History of the site
Early geography
Prior to the arrival of European settlers in the 18th century, the Anacostia River was a fast-flowing and relatively silt-free river with very few mudflats or marshes. White settlers cleared much of the surrounding forest for farmland, however, and extensive soil erosion led to a heavy load of silt and effluent in the Anacostia. In 1805, local landowner Benjamin Stoddert built a wooden bridge over the Anacostia River at the present site of Ethel Kennedy Bridge. The bridge was sold Thomas Ewell, who in the 1820s sold it to William Benning. Thereafter the structure was known as Benning's Bridge (or Benning Bridge). The wooden bridge was rebuilt several times after 1805. This included construction of a steel bridge in 1892. The construction of Benning and other bridges and the diversion of inflowing streams to agricultural use also slowed the river's current, allowing much of the silt to settle and be deposited.
Between 1860 and the late 1880s, large mudflats ("the Anacostia flats") formed on both banks of the Anacostia River due to this deforestation and runoff. At this time, the city allowed its sewage to pour untreated into the Anacostia. Marsh grass began growing in the flats, trapping the sewage and leading public health experts to conclude that the flats were unsanitary. Health officials also feared that the flats were a prime breeding ground for malaria- and yellow fever-carrying mosquitoes. By 1876, a large mudflat had formed immediately south of Benning Bridge and another flat some wide had developed south of that. By 1883, a stream named "Succabel's Gut" traversed the upper flat and another dubbed "Turtle Gut" the lower, and almost all flats on the river hosted substantial populations of American lotus, lily pads, and wild rice.
Dredging
In 1898, officials with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the District of Columbia convinced the United States Congress that the Anacostia River should be dredged to create a more commercially viable channel that would enhance the local economy. The dredged material would be used to build up the marshes—drying them out and eliminating the public health dangers they caused, as well as creating land where factories or warehouses might be built. Although the height of the reclaimed land would vary from to (the amount of dredged material depended on how much money was appropriated), the Corps of Engineers hoped to reclaim mudflats from Pennsylvania Avenue SE north to at least Benning Bridge.
Decisions on how to use the newly created land occurred over the next few years. In 1900, the United States Senate established the McMillan Commission, a body to advise the Congress and District of Columbia on ways to improve the parks, monuments, memorials, and infrastructure of the city as well as plan for urban renewal, economic growth, and expansion of the federal government. The McMillan Commission concluded that commercial land was not needed and proposed turning the reclaimed flats into parkland. The D.C. government agreed in 1905, and the United States Commission of Fine Arts (a federal advisory agency with review authority over the design and aesthetics of projects within Washington, D.C.) and the Army Corps of Engineers concurred in 1914. Most of the reclaimed mudflats were subsequently declared to be parkland and named Anacostia Water Park (now Anacostia Park) in 1919. The National Capital Park and Planning Commission (NCPPC) signed on (belatedly) to the park plan in 1928.