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Anacostia Trails Heritage Area
 Goals
The vision of the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area is to create a major tourist destination where visitors may come and enjoy a wide variety of attractions along the trail system, visit well-maintained communities, stay overnight at a comfortable hotel, eat at any number of different restaurants, and conduct research if so inclined, all while spending tourist dollars and thereby contributing to the success of the area, its resources, and its citizens.
To that end, the following goals were adopted by the Prince George's County Council as part of the Goals, Concepts and Guidelines that are a basis for the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area Management Plan:
Promote understanding of the importance of the area's Historic Sites to the history of Maryland and the history of our nation.
Conserve and interpret natural and recreational resources and open spaces in the Heritage Area in support of heritage tourism.
Preserve and enhance Historic Sites and cultural resources in the Heritage area.
Expand and enhance linkages among heritage attractions throughout the Heritage Area.
Expand existing partnerships and create new opportunities for partnerships to achieve the goals of the Heritage Area.
Promote development of the arts in the Heritage Area.
Improve the image of towns, the river and the entire Heritage Area through heritage tourism efforts.
Organize and unite communities and facilities by disseminating information and interpreting our shared history.
Increase economic activity, create jobs, boost small business development and create a stronger tax base as a result of expanded heritage tourism opportunities.
Location
The Anacostia Trails Heritage Area is a territory of some 83.7 square miles, encompassing 14 municipalities as well as many neighborhoods in the unincorporated portions of the County. It is bounded on three sides by the County boundary and on the east, in part by the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and in part by a line further east following Federal land ownership to the Patuxent River, the County's northern boundary.
The Heritage Area contains intact and relatively unspoiled Historic Sites that can be used to tell a multitude of stories about the most significant aspects of transportation and communication advances that transformed the American landscape. Since settlement of this area at the end of the 17th century, each successive century has seen the original development, or completion of a different mode of transportation or method of communication that has affected not only the local landscape but the national character as well. This is particularly true in the field of aviation as the entire timespan of aerospace history is represented within the Heritage Area. In 1784, the first documented balloon ascension in America took place in Bladensburg when a local attorney and inventor sent aloft an unmanned aerostatic globe. The Wright brothers perfected their Wright B flyer at the first United States Army Signal Corps airport in the nation at College Park, which is now the oldest continuously operated airport in the world. And the hub of all journeys into space—to the moon and beyond—is located here at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Nationally significant transportation and communication developments in the Heritage Area also include the operation of the Baltimore to Georgetown Road, over what is basically present-day US 1, which in 1783 became one of the first stage coach lines in the country. This roadway also became part of the first Federally funded mail route in the nation in 1785 and also in 1812, one of the first turnpikes in the country. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which was one of the first railroad lines in the country and the first in Maryland, constructed its Washington branch through the Heritage Area in 1835, thus immediately fostering the development of new communities and trading centers. In 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first experimental telegraph test message into Washington from a point along the railroad line near the Riversdale plantation and hence began the means for nationwide conversation.
Linking this concentration of cultural and historical resources is the Anacostia Tributary Trails System. Nowhere else in the region are such a number of attractions so easily accessible and physically connected by a scenic greenway. Tourists may fly, drive, cycle or walk to the area, stay overnight at a comfortable hotel or campsite, use any of the numerous recreational facilities, visit museums, conduct research on a multitude of subjects, and view an art exhibit all without ever traveling more than a quick walk from the Anacostia Tributary Trail System.
The Anacostia Trails Heritage Area also contains sites that document the nature of settlement patterns around Washington, D.C., and the rise of the African-American middle class. These include plantation and tobacco culture sites, a nationally known Depression-era planned “greentown,” streetcar suburb sites, and several examples of pattern book architecture from the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, the area has one-of-a-kind educational and scientific study centers and diverse cultural resources.
Management
The heritage tourism program in the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area is a partnership effort involving fourteen municipalities and several unincorporated communities in Prince George's County, ATHA, Inc. and the Prince George's County Redevelopment Authority.
Management Plan
Preparation of a management plan approved by the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority is a requirement for becoming a Maryland “Certified” Heritage Area. The approved Management Plan includes information on the boundaries of the Certified Heritage Area and “Target Investment Zones,” and presents the heritage area’s vision and goals and the strategies, projects, programs, actions, and partnerships that will be implemented to accomplish them.
Click here to open the management plan.
Contact Information
Ms. Karen Jennings Crooms, Executive Director
Anacostia Trails Heritage Area, Inc.*
4310 Gallatin Street
Hyattsville, MD 20781
(301) 887-0777
(301) 887-1077 (fax)
E-mail: karencrooms@atha.com
Website: www.anacostiatrails.org
– and –
Ms. Tanya Diggs
Redevelopment Authority of Prince George’s County
9201 Basil Court, Suite 155
Largo, MD 20774
301-883-7405
301-883-5291 (fax)
* ATHA, Inc., works in partnership with the Redevelopment Authority of Prince George’s County which serves as the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area management entity.
Last updated: December 10, 2007
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