Past and Present In Dunn Loring

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The Loring Land Improvement Company proudly built "a tasteful and comfortable depot," as they explained in a pamphlet published in 1887. "The nearness of the town of Washington, being only forty-five minutes from the Baltimore and Potomac Station, renders it most desirable to persons employed in that city and wishing for a healthful country home." The two founders of the company, Gen. William Dunn and Mr. Loring, planned to develop Dunn Loring as a railroad suburb. Their brochure emphasized the healthfulness of Dunn Loring because epidemics periodically swept through Washington. Before the company could build more than two houses, General Dunn died. The company went bankrupt soon afterward. Photo by H.H. Harwood, Jr., shows post office in the depot in 1957, six years after passenger service had ceased. Depot was torn down in 1960.

Walking Tour

Taylor House, c. 1887. During the Spanish-American War (1898), the owners of this house converted their living room into a grocery store to profit from the proximity of thousands of soldiers who were stationed in the Army's Camp Alger in Dunn Loring. Among their ranks was Carl Sandburg, then nineteen years-old. Many of the troops died of diseases, because the Army's engineers did not understand the importance of sanitation. The upstream encampments discharged their wastes into the streams which the downstream encampments used to obtain their drinking water. This house was one of the first three houses in Dunn Loring.

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