The Lost Forest Of Washington DC

By 1900 Washington D.C. was famous as a "city of trees." Its "embowering shades" made it the top newlywed destination in the U.S., surpassing Niagara Falls. Nowhere was this more true than on the Mall itself, which at that time was a picturesque park filled with flowers, shade trees, a botanical garden, and an arboretum. Visitors explored the grounds and admired the trees on curvilinear paths winding through the middle of the Mall. From the height of the Capitol building a tree canopy covered almost the entire area. The empty, formal vista we know today as the Mall did not exist until the mid 1930s. The deforestation of the old Mall took place in stages from the first decade of the 20th century, when the formal plan was introduced, to the Great Depression, when the plan was finally realized as a road project in the new public works program. A relatively biodiverse horticultural landscape gave way to a monoculture of grass and elm trees newly planted in straight lines. Many local residents had sentimental attachments to the old trees and mourned their loss. They protested the so-called "rape of the Mall" but ultimately to no avail. I enclose a photograph of a deer in the old forested grounds outside the Smithsonian building, one of the most beloved collections of trees on the Mall. The great landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing designed the original tree plantings in 1851; the last of his trees were wiped out around 1935.