2008 Mayor's Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation

November 18, 2008

Agency: Office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia

Project: Rock Creek Park Archaeological Study

 

The Louis Berger Group worked along with the National Park Service and Rock Creek Park to survey and record the rich history that surrounds commuters as they make their way from the Maryland suburbs into the city.  LBG conducted the study from 2003 to 2008. During this project, nearly 1,300 acres of park land was surveyed and 51 archeological sites were documented, most of which were entirely new discoveries. These sites include Native American camps and stone quarries, colonial farmsteads and mills, nineteenth-century tenant dwellings, and Civil War sites, such as Fort DeRussy and Fort Totten.

 

During the first year of the study, a geomorphological reconnaissance of the Upper Rock Creek Valley assessed the potential for intact stream terraces that might contain well preserved Native American or early historic occupations. The project also included the preparation of several new layers for the park GIS, one with the archeological sites and survey areas, and others based on some of the most detailed historical maps of the area. These include boundary mapping of the colonial period patents and a series of mid- to late-nineteenth-century maps of the District, including detailed mapping of the Civil War landscape. These new GIS layers will be a useful tool for future project planning and management of the park’s archeological resources.