A digital mockup of a new footbridge being installed in Linnean Park.
by John Burwell
Visitors to Linnean Park the weekend January 7th and 8th will be unable to cross the old cut log footbridge, as a new boardwalk bridge will be under construction. A member of Boy Scout Troop 100 will be leading the troop in building a level and safe water crossing as his Eagle Scout service project. All park visitors will be the lucky beneficiaries of this trail improvement for years to come.
Troop 100, “The Century Troop,” was chartered on February 1, 1918, only eight years after Scouting was introduced to the United States. Troop 100 is the oldest Boy Scout Troop in our nation’s capital, and one of the oldest in the nation. It meets at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Tenleytown.
I’ve been speaking with Linnean Park visitors about the bridge, first installed in 2014, and they have expressed varied opinions upon learning of the planned improvement.
The existing bridge on the Linnean trail.
Some robust hikers enjoy the challenge of maneuvering across, on either or both of sides of the uneven crossing. Many others welcome the proposed change. In fact, just recently an elderly person appreciated a helping hand to successfully negotiate the sunken and partially rotted conveyance.
Those familiar with Linnean Park have probably noticed some other various improvements over the past calendar year. Multiple organized volunteer group efforts have included trail maintenance, planting and protecting native trees with fencing, and the removal of invasive non-native fountain grass, Japanese knotweed, porcelainberry vines and autumn olive.
Marlene Berlin of Forest Hills Connection, Mitch Baer with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and recently elected ANC 3F03 commissioner, and I, a National Park Service Weed Warrior, adopted Linnean Park in February 2022 through DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation Adopt-A-Park Program. We are the Linnean Park Partnership.
The DC Department of Energy and the Environment was also active, planting native trees and bushes this past summer on the slope below the Kuwaiti ambassador’s residence.
Over the past two years, 54 native species have been planted and 129 existing species protected from deer browsing and buck rub.
Plans for future improvements include identifying signage at the park entrances on Broad Branch Terrace and Linnean Avenue. Many visitors aren’t aware of the property’s DC ownership or that it even has a name.
John Burwell is a certified Weed Warrior and founding member of the Linnean Park Partnership and the Pinehurst Project. He has also led volunteer efforts at Broad Branch Stream. Contact John at pinehurstprojectdc@gmail.com with your questions and requests for information.
Paul Walters says
Because the District stepped up several years ago, and repaired the area of Linnean Playground and did the Broad Branch stream daylighting project, we have two wonderful wildlife preserves adjacent to one another in Forest Hills. Mr. Burwell is a gem, and he and all those who volunteer with him to preserve Linnean Playground and other sites in our neighborhood should be loudly applauded.
FHC says
Thanks for this comment, Paul, and for the reminder that we tried some years ago to learn why maps referred to those wilds of Linnean stream as “Linnean Playground.” We were not successful.
Paul Walters says
My best guess on the origin of “Linnean Playground” (now commonly called “Linnean Park”) is that it was the name used by the National Park Service in March 1972 when it transferred an area between Broad Branch Terrace NW and Linnean Avenue NW, designated as “Reservation 625” and called “Linnean Playground” in the NPS’s official inventory of National Capital Parks. The latest update to that inventory lists 69 reservations called “Playgrounds” in the District that were transferred at some point from the federal government to DC government for “recreation” purposes. These so-called “Playgrounds” are all over DC, such as “Trinidad Playground”, “Lincoln Playground”, and so on.