Wisconsin Avenue - History

History

Wisconsin Avenue follows the route of an ancient Native American trail. Between 1805 and 1820, it was reconstructed into a toll road to carry tobacco and other products between Georgetown and Frederick. Starting around 1920, various sections of the road have been paved and widened to two, four and as many as six lanes.

In 1864, General Jubal A. Early marched down this road from Monocacy Junction in an attempt to take Washington, D.C. that ended in the Battle of Fort Stevens.

Wisconsin Avenue was once U.S. Highway 240. Outside of the Beltway, U.S. Highway 240 was relocated to what is today Interstate 270. Eventually, the entire route designation was decommissioned.

Read more about this topic:  Wisconsin Avenue

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    A people without history
    Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
    Of timeless moments.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.
    Camille Paglia (b. 1947)