Excerpt from Public Improvements Secured in the Northern Section of the District of Columbia by the Brightwood Avenue Citizens Association an Address

At the request of our executive committee, I have come all the way from the capital of the State of Tennessee, where I was sent to represent the District of Columbia at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition by the District Commissioners, to make an address of welcome. It is therefore my happy privilege, as well as my duty, as president of the Brightwood Avenue Citizens' Association and chairman of its executive committee, to extend to each of you a sincere and hearty welcome to the shady hills of Brightwood.

This is a proud day for our Association. We celebrate today the completion of a new fire-engine house, and we rejoice that it is to be under the charge of Foreman John Sherman and his brave associate fire-fighters, Donaldson, Smith, Beall, Nelson, Bernhardt, Covington, and Metz, whom we also welcome to their new field of activity.

That you may thoroughly appreciate the condition of this community, let me say, that less than a decade ago Brightwood was almost as inaccessible as Rock Creek Park is today - which, as you know, Mr. Commissioner, is but little better known than when prehistoric men chipped their stone axes in the quarries along its banks.

In those days, unless we had horses to go to Washington we had either to walk or ride in a rickety stage-coach, with torn and flying curtains, known as the "Red Bird, " which a curious old negro occasionally drove up and down the road.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.