Guest post by Sarah Shank

Post updated

Before the widespread availability of the internet, communities were built in the streets and on porches. This is how and where neighbors connected, news was shared, and families celebrated. It was rare that neighborhood happenings would go unnoticed. Community leaders united the neighborhood by spreading neighborhood news, organizing neighborhood watches, igniting local activism, and welcoming new neighborhood residents.

Lamond-Riggs is a community of leaders. Our residents have done this for decades and continue to be a force in the District. Even the mayor got her start in politics living in this corner of the diamond–first as ANC, then councilmember, then mayor–before moving to Northwest.

After living in DC for more than 20 years – in many different neighborhoods across the District – I’m proud to now call Lamond-Riggs home. While I’m a newcomer to the neighborhood (going on only 2 years now), I picked to live in this neighborhood for a few reasons: its established community, commitment to its residents, and the neighborhood family feel that it retains. I’m continually amazed by the civic engagement that residents have and the rich history that surrounds us.

We are a neighborhood of firsts.

And while many of these firsts are from way before my time, but none are by any means small and I’m just naming a few!

• The first Summer Cultural Enrichment Program under the sponsorship of the Urban Services Corps was held at LaSalle Elementary School.
• The first comprehensive cultural enrichment program sponsored by the Neighborhood Planning Council and DC Public Schools was held at Bertie Backus Junior High School.
• The Lamond-Riggs Athletic Association was the first to organize little league football teams in DC.

We are a neighborhood of activists.

As the headline to a 1988 Washington Post article notes, “For a small neighborhood tucked away in a corner of Northeast Washington, Riggs Park has made a lot of noise over the years.” So from the creation of Bertie Backus Junior High School in the 1950’s, to the freeway fights of the 1960’s and 1970’s, to construction of Fort Totten metro station in the 1970’s, to construction of the neighborhood library in the 1980’s and now again today – throughout  time, residents developed and maintained a thriving, mixed-income community with strong civic participation.

Come to any Lamond-Riggs Citizens Association monthly meeting and you’ll see that civic engagement still happening to this day.

We are a neighborhood of families.

Young and old. Then and now. Our homes have yards and alleys. Our homes are filled with hard-working DC families. While accessible by metro, our neighborhood provides refuge from the daily grind. It has big open sky and it’s our home away from the city but still in the city – aren’t we lucky!

Founded in 1980, the Humanities Council of Washington, DC (HumanitiesDC) aims to enrich the quality of life, foster intellectual stimulation, and promote cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of local history in all neighborhoods of the District. They allow neighborhood organizations and individuals to apply for grants to help document and share their story of DC through oral histories. Through these DC Oral History Collaborative grants, HumanitiesDC aims to document and preserve the stories and memories of residents by making existing oral history recordings more accessible and giving residents the training and financial resources they need to conduct quality interviews.

With this type of financial support, we together can record the stories that bore witness to the neighborhood’s early years, allowing us the opportunity to capture key moments in the neighborhood’s history over the past seven decades. These stories should be documented and shared with our own community as well as have our civic pride touted to every other corner of DC.

I’m eager to apply on behalf of our neighborhood because I see tremendous value in the stories that we have in Lamond-Riggs. But to do this, I need the help and support of all my neighbors and friends. Our residents have a unique view of this Capitol city that I want that not only recorded, but also shared.

Send me your ideas.

Send me your photos (I promise to scan and return them).

Tell me your memories.

The grant application is due on January 25, 2019. This means there is still time to include as many of our community ideas into the grant application as possible. If we are awarded the grant, the funds will be used to record oral histories from five to ten Lamond-Riggs residents. We will supplement the recordings with photos. And if we have more people who want to tell their stories, we can always do more! Also, if we don’t win the grant, I still hope to begin collecting stories and documenting the legacy of our community and its residents so that this rich history can live on for generations to come.

I’m confident that by collecting and sharing these stories, we’ll be able to instill the same sense of community and activism in the next generation, so that they can continue to make this neighborhood one of firsts and families – much like it has always been.

Please feel free to comment below with comments and/or ideas. Or please send me a note directly here.

Guest Post by David Kosub

*** Please note David is only a citizen historian and apologizes for any incidental fake news. He hopes neighbors share these stories and are inspired to write about their community in the new year too.*** [Ed. Note: If you would like to contribute a blog post for Next Stop . . . Riggs Park, please send an email to nextstopriggs@gmail.com]

Welcome to Part 2 of our Lamond-Riggs naming story. As you may recall, we met the Lamonds in Part 1 of the series, learned to make Terra Cotta, and found out about a little ol’ horrific train disaster. With that introduction, let’s meet Riggs.

The President’s Banker 

Picture of George Washington Riggs

Born on Independence Day in Georgetown in 1813, George Washington Riggs was definitely a firecracker. A true high-roller 19^th century style, Riggs teamed with William Corcoran, of the present-day Dupont gallery fame, in what would become a very lucrative banking empire. Their bank, as a result of a government decision, was the only one allowed to obtain a large chunk of federal depositories in the city, leading to crazy profits. Rolling on all cylinders, they helped finance the Mexican-American War with over $15 million in loans from the federal government, provided over $7 million in gold for the purchase of Alaska, financed the development of the telegraph, provided funds to expand the Capitol, and resourced one of the first expeditions to the South Pole.

Multiple Presidents (including a Confederate one), Cabinet Secretaries, Senators, Generals, suffragettes, Red Cross founders, and many embassies entrusted their treasures with Riggs Bank. Riggs himself retired from the bank in the late 1840s, but his family had a stake in the institution until the early 20^th century. In 1904, their new headquarters on Pennsylvania Ave was notable for its “Ladies’ Department,” designed to meet the special needs of women, including Clara Barton and Susan B. Anthony (ooh la la).

Riggs spent much of his time not too far from where you currently sleep. His 197-acre country estate was situated on a high vantage point, with views of the U.S. Capitol (though technically outside the city back then). You may know of this area now as the Armed Forces Retirement Home after the federal government purchased it from the Riggs estate in 1851 for $57,000 (after paying only $3,400 to purchase the site nine years earlier). It was on these grounds in the summer of 1862 where President Lincoln penned the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation (only a dozen years after enslaved persons may have lived here too). Today, now recognized as a DC historic site and on the National Register of Historic Places, this property has sculptured landscapes, war memorials, and the original Gothic Revival-style cottage which bears the Riggs name.

Lincoln Cottage. Source

Because you cannot hide money, Riggs established a second country estate – a new, slightly more modest 140-acre one known for its “fine blooded cattle” in present day Silver Spring. Alas, this one had to be sold too, a mere week after a “skirmish” between Union and Confederate troops that left the nearby vicinity torched and plundered in 1864. Though 300 people died, the Riggs family suffered too, losing “some hay forage,” vegetables, and a valuable ox.” Today, the property serves as a private school for students with learning disabilities.

At the age of 68, Riggs passed away in his Green Hill home—yes, a third country estate, which was 342 acres in Hyattsville and included the only mill still surviving in Prince George’s County. An obituary crooned that Riggs was “remarkable for strength of mind and . . . power to grasp and fathom any subject presented to him . . . and in all his transactions, his judgement prompt, and his conclusions just.” Wow, it’s like reading a biography of yours truly. Not too far from the Lamonds, Riggs can also be found lazing around Rock Creek Cemetery too (section D, Lot 14) – just a 25-minute stroll from the community bearing his name.

Bankers to the Most Important Money in the World – Yours

Now, let’s check back in with Riggs Bank (see these simply amazing commercials here, here, here and the 1980’s jingle here). Lasting over 150 years, with multiple iconic branches in the District, including Georgetown, Dupont, and across from the U.S. Treasury, it kind of fell with a thud. Though not as cool as this sort of Riggs downfall here, the bank’s failure in the early 21^st century was just as epic and followed, wait for it . . . a handful of money laundering scandals resulting in the company paying millions in fines and penalties.

Image of Riggs National Bank ca. 1913-1918. Source

Remember those embassies mentioned earlier, and their treasures too? Well, various employees at Riggs Bank were caught embezzling over $30 million in oil revenues from the Embassy of Equatorial Guinea on behalf of that country’s dictator. One of the employees at the Dupont branch would apparently even walk up the road to the embassy and collect briefcases containing stacks of shrink-wrapped bills. The bank also was connected to yet another dictator, this time with Chile, helping him hide additional millions (see here how the bank tried to make good on this one). Federal reports also noted that the bank “inadequately monitored the destinations and uses of large amounts of cash, often more than $1 million at a time” in over 150 accounts linked to the Saudi Arabian embassy and ambassador (it even got a shout out on Meet The Press). And, of course, the bank was linked to the CIA too, because, why not?

 Alternative facts: What If . . . 

It is still unclear to me, however, why our neighborhood went from being known as Terra Cotta to Lamond-Riggs (Lamond & Riggs Park neighborhoods collectively) today. I find it a shame because Terra Cotta sounds pretty cool actually. I would like to believe that it goes deeper than just the nature of evolving communities and adjacent streets . . . like maybe the two families knew each other at some point in their life.

Perhaps Riggs issued a loan to Lamond to start the plant, who then reciprocated with a gift of the first clay tile hot out of the oven. Or, maybe Alcena caused an uproar at a citizen’s association meeting over the most hyper-local issue of the day — overgrown trees, unsafe pedestrian crossings at train tracks, silent invocations, and potholes, yes definitely potholes. Perhaps they shared stories over a pint during a Thirsty Third Terra Cotta Thursday too.

Regardless of the reason, we all live here together and have made it the tight, close-knit community it is today. As history happens every second of every day, let’s continue to create it, stroll through it, welcome it, and learn about the hidden mysteries that exist right under our noses.

Guest post by David Kosub 

*** Please note David is only a citizen historian and apologizes for any incidental fake news. He hopes neighbors share these stories and are inspired to write about their community in the new year too.*** [Ed. Note: If you would like to contribute a blog post to Next Stop . . . Riggs Park, please send an email to nextstopriggs@gmail.com]

Back in 2011, all around the DMV, we found ourselves asking, “What is NoMA anyways”? After Amazon made its announcement, we found ourselves wondering something similarly–“National Landing, really”? I guess it’ll be called NaLa soon enough.

Even closer to our “scrappy, down-home” neighborhood, if you want to see sparks fly, then ask someone about what they think about the name “Fort Totten Square,” or about their initial impressions of “Fort Totten” metro. But, be careful. Make sure you do not call it Fort Totten-Riggs station though. For that matter, where did the name “Lamond-Riggs” come from anyways–or as I call it, LaRi?

Here, in this two-part series, I sought to uncover this mystery and meet the elusive Lamond and Riggs. In Part 1, let’s start by turning the clocks back about a century and a half and meet the Lamonds.

Terra Cotta Warriors: A Different Type of Baked Earth in Washington

There is a silty, reddish clay earth right beneath your feet. This soil, the bane of many area gardeners – like yours truly – who just want to grow some darn tomatoes and peppers in their yard, actually contributed to a vibrant industry over a century ago. Heating this ample clay-ground proved perfect for making a certain material commonly found in sculptures, flower pots, pipes, bricks, roofing tiles, and even metro platform embellishments.

And, voila, the Terra Cotta neighborhood was born. The Federal government officially recognized this description in 1979, the same year as the names Lamond-Riggs and Fort Totten Park, and it still existed as recently as 2007.

This name is linked to a thriving business established here in the latter half of the 19^th Century, the Potomac Terra Cotta Company. Its impressive, large ovens could be seen creating clay tiles on the eastern side of the recently laid Baltimore and Ohio train tracks, near today’s Van Buren Street, Underwood Street, and Chillum Place.

Picture of Angus Lamond

Drum roll please, this company was the brainchild of one Scottish-born Angus Lamond. He started the company some time after immigrating to the United States at the age of 25. With Gaelic and Norse origins, his family name meant “the law man” and was llikely pronounced “Laumon.” If you cannot get enough Game of Thrones, check out this actual ancestral history of the Lamonts of Tiree, from which our hero Angus may have derived.

In 1873, officials with the railroad, specifically the Metropolitan Branch rail line, moved the nearby Brightwood station closer to the company, renaming it Lamond Station or Terra Cotta. Likely located somewhere between where Fort Totten and Takoma metro stops are today, the relocation of this simple, three-sided wood-framed structure caused some consternation. The railway thus justified the move by explaining that the station was better protected from vandals at the new site.

Advertisement for Potomac Terra Cotta Company. Source:

The new station served another role too, incentivizing people to move to an unincorporated parcel of land destined to be a nuclear-free, suburban oasis located “high above the swampy, malaria-ridden Washington City.” When Alcena Lamond, Angus’s better half, encountered it in 1875, she lamented that the area “was all that a wilderness could be.”

Even with the fear of the unknown, the Lamonds would come to embrace the wild. The town would grow without regard for jurisdiction, incorporating part of the large Riggs estate (but we will get to Riggs later in Part 2). By 1889, this “place only for the wild creatures of nature” expanded from the original 5 homes—one of which was the Lamonds—to over 200.

The call of the wild was so strong that Angus and Alcena even donated land for a library, though not likely the one you are envisioning. Angus allegedly convinced his childhood friend Andrew to give a $40,000 construction grant, which together with the land, eventually became the Takoma Park Carnegie library in the early 20^th century. Before it could become reality, the contribution of the “best men” in Takoma Park needed to testify at a House hearing in 1907, including Angus who was glorified as one of the “most generous” and “prominent” citizens during the lovefest. A Congressman touted the library would be a “valuable addition to the educational facilities of the District of Columbia . . . [and] that the remoter sections of the District are entitled to the largest possible use of the Washington  Public Library.” Let’s keep that in mind as our local branch gets its own upgrade over the next couple years!

1890 map of Terra Cotta neighborhood. Company and railroad are circled in red Source

Alcena, the true rock star she was, worked her magic on the 57^th Congress to pass legislation in 1902 to incorporate the Eastern Star Home for the District of Columbia. This institution was a home for “needy and worthy [fathers, their widows and orphans, and members] of the Order of the Eastern Star of [the District of Columbia].” The Order of the Eastern Star is a Masonic group (complete with its own International Temple in Dupont) that recognized her as a Grand Matron in 1896. Angus was prominent in Masonic circles too, recognized as a Grand Patron. The Eastern Star Home, essentially a nursing home off New Hampshire Ave NE, naturally (being D.C. and all) was destined to be a future sight for a zoning fight between the District, neighbors, and developers over a century later.

Meanwhile, back at the Terra Cotta Plant, work was seemingly difficult producing those clay tiles. For starters, it claimed the life of one of their sons in a tragic clothing-related accident in 1922. The other son also lost an arm while working in the factory. But, despite this incident, this son would successfully manage the company for decades until its closing in the mid-1950s (so, give him a hand for that, he needs it). Some of their clay fixtures can even probably still be found on houses in our neighborhood today.

Angus, who died in 1917 around the age of 75, and Alcena, who died in 1932 around the age of 82, both now leisurely hang out right around the corner in Rock Creek Cemetery (Section R11, Lot 49, Grave 3 and Grave 1, respectively). They are just a 25-minute stroll from the community bearing their name, so pay them a visit.

Train Spotters (caution ahead)

For an additional, unfortunate twist of fate, the Lamond/Terra Cotta station is known for the worst train disaster in Washington D.C. history, one hundred years before the one you are likely thinking about. This accident was later recounted in the book Undergraduate Days 1904-1908 as a “terrible noise…of an explosion, escaping steam, breaking wood, groaning brakes and human screams” heard as far away as Brookland and Catholic University. A newspaper recounted that “the butchery of the passengers was one of the most frightful things in the history of railroading.” They were cut into pieces and portions of their bodies scattered all along the track. When all was said and done, 53 passengers lost their lives, over 70 were injured, and none of the engineers on the offending train were found guilty of manslaughter.

Image of newspaper article on train crash

A citizen historian who spent 10 years studying the crash opined that this incident “hastened the conversion of passenger cars from wood to steel and led to improvements in railroad signaling,” so I guess there is that silver lining. Though if you need another pick-me-up right about now, as I did when writing this, then see this happy story about the Fort Totten metro train tracks before going to bed.

So, that was the Lamonds. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our naming saga in which we’ll learn about bankers, emancipation, and dictators, oh my . . .