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More than a century ago a few people with a very far-reaching vision worked to protect our little finger of green within Rock Creek Park. It was a lucky coincidence of history—the beginning of the public parks movement melded with the involvement and stewardship of powerful men who had the foresight to know that many parts of a stream are dependent on each other, and who understood that it takes a great deal of land to make a forest. 

Klingle Valley area did not see much development until after the Rock Creek Gorge was bridged in 1886 over Klingle Valley and at Calvert Street in 1891. Woodley Park developed rapidly in the 1880s after the construction of the bridges as well as the streetcar lines.

Banker Charles Glover, friend of presidents and businessmen alike, rode often through Rock Creek’s vast woods, alone or with senators, judges, and other powerful friends. Legend has it that one day, on a November ride with a group of gentlemen through the woods around Blagden Mill, Glover stopped his horse, paused, and said, "Boys, this is Thanksgiving Day. Let us enter into a solemn resolve that we will never cease working until the Rock Creek Park is a reality." Glover knew what was ahead of him: he called it a "task of Hercules" requiring an "avalanche" of time. Congress required constant vigilance and persuasion, but finally passed a bill in 1890 to establish Rock Creek Park.

At the turn of the century, Sen. James McMillan of Michigan, sponsored a congressional study of Washington's parks. The McMillan Commission, consisted of four prominent civic artists: Architects Daniel H. Burnham and Charles F. McKim, sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr - son of famous founder of American landscape architecture. The commission report had great influence on the later development and expansion of parklands in and around the city.  Regarding beach drive, the report said:

 “Narrow as the present road is, and skillfully as it was built, there are several points where it has very appreciably injured the scenery, and to widen it by any considerable amount would be a calamity. It is true that the value of the park scenery depends absolutely on making it conveniently accessible to the people, but nothing can be gained if the means of access destroys the scenery which it is meant to exhibit, and we believe that as wide a road as the future population is likely to demand would injure the character of the valley irremediably. Possibly the solution is to be found in the ultimate construction of another and wider drive, or drives, high enough on the valley sides to leave the wild sylvan character of the stream at the bottom of the gorge uninjured, but yet within sight and sound of the water and seeming to be of the valley. Such a road would doubtless require more grading, would cost more, and would destroy more trees and more square yards of pretty under­growth than a road at the bottom of the gorge, but the damage of the latter would be done at the vital spot. It would be the pound of flesh from nearest the heart, while the former would compare with the amputation of a leg."

Whereas the McMillan Commission only touched upon Rock Creek Park, being more concerned with the monumental city core, the Olmsted Brothers report ordered by the Board of Control in 1917 focused on its development and expansion. The Olmsted Report was completed in December 1918, and it advocated that land acquisition should receive priority, the report stated, especially on the west side from Pierce Mill (Klingle Valley and Melvin Hazen)  Its tone was set by its opening sentence:

 "The dominant consideration, never to be subordinated to any other purpose in dealing with Rock Creek Park, is the permanent preservation of its wonderful natural beauty, and the making of that beauty accessible to the people without spoiling the scenery in the process."

 The report spoke of the park's two kinds of scenery--the larger landscape pictures and the intimate details:

 These two sorts of scenery are not peculiar to Rock Creek Park, but in this beautiful valley with its many ramifications they are found in a high degree of perfection and in almost unlimited variety. It is the extraordinary combination of this circumstance with the proximity of the valley to a great city that gives to the Park its unique value. This is the value which was first preserved by Act of Congress for the benefit of all people. It is now and always will be the only value that can justify the maintenance of this great natural park.." Roads "should always and unmistakably fit into the landscape as harmonious and subordinate parts of the scenery through which they pass."

The Olmsted Report was approved by the Fine Arts Commission, and they detailed landscape architect James L. Greenleaf to study the Olmsted Report, recommend on its implementation, and inspect and report on the work done.  He began by remarking on the perennial tension between preservation and use:

 The Report declares the "dominant motives" of the Park to be to preserve its natural character of wooded valley and upland and open meadow, and to make it accessible to the public with the least injury to this natural beauty. The two motives are inevitably opposed in any naturalistic park and increasingly so in proportion as a large city grows about it. Yet they must be balanced and adjusted, and this basic problem of adjusting artistic values and utility will arise continually in a thousand different places…. Features of utility are necessary that the Park may be of use but always there must be dominant a clear appreciation of its natural charm and a determination that it shall not be sacrificed. A recognition of this is vital to the preservation of values in Rock Creek Park.

The rise of the automobile’s dominance pushed against the desire to keep a more natural Rock Creek Park. The National Capital Planning Commission designed the roadways for the park in the 1920s and 1930s. Automobile access was limited to certain areas and pleasure driving became one of the park's amenities.

In June 1934 Malcolm Kirk­patrick, a landscape architect for the Park Service’s Branch of Plans and Design, prepared a 16-page report titled "What: Is Wrong With Rock Creek Park." He termed his critique a supplement to the Olmsted Report of 1918. Kirkpatrick complained "The automobile can be designated as one of the greatest detriments to the enjoyment of Rock Creek Park today”

Turning the lower Rock Creek valley into a national park not only saved a stream—negating subsequent "visions" of different individuals to turn the valley into a reservoir or a highway—but preserved a piece of great geology for future generations as well. The exposed bedrock of its stream bed has been termed "the footprint of ancient mountains."

Klingle Parkway - how it becomes part of the park>>>>

[2] Rock Creek Park: A Report by Olmsted Brothers, December 1918.

[3] Office memorandum, Ridley, Feb. 1, 1919, Rock Creek Park Correspondence project file, Commission of Fine Arts records

[4] letter, Greenleaf to Ridley, Feb. 6, 1919, Rock Creek Park Correspondence project file, Commission of Fine Arts records.