Poppa’s Bridge

A General and Family History of the Klingle Valley Bridge

Our late mother Ann Grayson Guevara was a student of genealogy and Washington D.C. history. I inherited a light canvas tote with a sketched illustration of the Cleveland Park Lodge & Streetcar Waiting Room (1898-1912) on one side and a like depiction of the old Cleveland Park Library (1953-2003) on the other. A modern library now stands on the site of those earlier structures. The 3/4 of a mile walk north along Connecticut Avenue from our family home to the old library took us past Ann’s parents’ ca. 1923 apartment building, the main entrance to the National Zoo, and finally across the beautiful Klingle Valley Bridge.

It’s official name seems to be the Connecticut Avenue bridge, but to us it will always be “Poppa’s bridge,” named for Ann’s father Leon Grayson (1906-1993). As children we found ourselves on Poppa’s bridge many weekends, usually with Ann, Poppa, or both. Across the bridge was the neighborhood commercial area which then included the old library, the Safeway grocery, People’s drug, Tropea’s barber shop, Eddie Leonard’s sandwich shop, Perpetual Savings and Loan, the post office, fire station, 7/11, the Uptown theater, and Gallagher’s pub, one of Poppa’s favorite bar and grills.

The 1891 Klingle Valley Bridge

Prior to 1890, the area north of Rock Creek remained remote and inaccessible due to the steep ravines of Rock Creek and the Klingle Valley.

Kimberly Prothro Williams, “Cleveland Park Historic District” (19 page brochure © 2001 D.C. Preservation League)

The aptly if unimaginatively named Rock Creek runs roughly north to south through Washington, D.C. The invention of the electric trolley in the late 1880s allowed residents to live further from the city, but the Rock Creek and Klingle Valleys remained a barrier to expansion to the northwest.

Having discretely purchased land out Connecticut Avenue toward their planned suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland, in 1891 a group of investors including future U.S. Senator Francis. G. Newlands built a $70,000, 755-foot steel truss bridge 130 feet over the Rock Creek Valley at Calvert Street¹ and a $35,000, 497-foot long steel trestle over Klingle Valley.² The investors instituted the single-track Rock Creek Railway, a five-mile electric streetcar line that began at Calvert Street and terminated at Chevy Chase Lake, an amusement park the syndicate built adjacent to their trolley turn-around barn and electricity generating plant. The streetcar made scheduled stops at the brand new Smithsonian National Zoo (1891) and within a few years at the growing subdivision of Cleveland Park, for which the aforementioned heated lodge and waiting room was built in 1898.

A Tragic Accident

Klingle Valley Stream is a tributary that descends from present-day Cathedral Heights into Rock Creek. It was named for the family of Joshua Peirce Klingle (1835-1892), on whose land the valley and a much-used ford across Rock Creek originally lay. The steel truss Klingle Valley bridge served the railway, bikers, and pedestrians well, but as automobiles became more common its 35-foot width became a problem. The June 17, 1925 Washington Evening Star reported a tragic result:

“THREE IN AUTO DIE IN 80-FOOT PLUNGE; BABY ALONE SAVED. Rendered unmanageable after a collision with a trolley pole, a large new sedan vaulted from the Klingle Bridge on Connecticut avenue last night and plunged somersaulting to Rock Creek Valley, 80-feet below, carrying two men and a woman to their death. A miraculous stroke of fate spared the life of a 2-year-old girl, the only other occupant of the car.“

The article noted that the bridge width “is 40 per cent narrower than the roadway of Connecticut avenue, forming a ‘bottleneck’ condition at each end.” A 50 year-old man was driving his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild southbound at moderate speed along Connecticut Avenue. As he maneuvered onto the bridge he was suddenly forced to swerve onto the center trolley tracks by the car ahead. His left hubcap snagged a trolley electrical pole, turning the car 90 degrees across the northbound lane. “The car jumped the sidewalk, crashed into the iron protective balustrade, and swept right through it to mid-air.” The bridge was deemed “exceedingly dangerous” by city authorities.

The New Connecticut Avenue Bridge

“PLANS APPROVED FOR NEW KLINGLE VALLEY BRIDGE,” read the front page headline of the November 18, 1930 Evening Star, under which was a lovely artistic rendering. “The design has the approval of the Fine Arts Commission and the National Park and planning Commission…. The abutments of the new structure are to be concrete faced, with dressed stone quarried near Washington. From these abutments will spring a single steel arch, 250 feet long. This arch is to support the roadway, 60 feet wide, with sidewalks on each side. The life of the bridge is estimated at 50-100 years.” The article continued, “The bridge can be widened to 80 feet by removing a series of brackets along the outer edge and using the space now designed for sidewalk space as extra roadway space. Extra sidewalk space can then easily be built on.” The bridge was completed in early 1932 at a cost of $460,000.³

The handsome 7-story Woodley Park Towers (1930) and the grand 11-story Kennedy-Warren apartments (1931) stand above the valley, guarding the southwest and southeast entries to the bridge respectively. Smaller apartment buildings of the same era line Connecticut Avenue on the opposite side. A pair of large fluted urns flank all four corners of the bridge, each topped by working beveled glass electric lanterns. Two poles about fifteen feet high are attached to the iron railings on each side of the bridge. Halfway up, two streetlights in the iconic “Washington Globe Twin-20” design protrude. For thirty years the extended pole structure supported the above-ground electric trolley lines. The entire Washington D.C. streetcar system was replaced with buses by 1962.

Klingle Road

A rutted bridle path has long existed through Klingle Valley. An 1891 newspaper article recommended a long scenic carriage ride and noted, “The Klingle road is hilly, with a rough, gravelly surface (now being improved, however,) and passes through most charming forest glens. The road is shaded by a variety of fine trees – oak, chestnut, maple, beech, poplar, &c. A small stream – Birch brook – babbles along its southern side, the banks being abundantly supplied with wild flowers, ferns and shrubs…. The iron bridge of the Rock Creek electric railroad spans it about a half mile west of Rock creek.⁴ The road was widened and macadamized about 1914, and served as an automobile cross-park route until a felled tree, political battles, and roadway erosion closed the road to traffic in 1990. A lighted 10-foot wide hiker/biker trail now ascends the valley from Rock Creek and passes beneath the bridge.

Family Memories

At each end of the bridge the sidewalk is extra wide, with two stone benches beckoning rest and reflection. Our sister Teresa remembers Poppa doing just this as she and her two younger siblings played on the walkway. On the northwest end of the bridge the iron railing terminates at a thigh-high wall. Teresa recalls dramatically jumping/falling off this wall as a child, pretending the drop to be 30 feet rather than the 2-3 feet it actually is at that point. Our brother Joe admits as a teen he and his friends liked to scare unknowing people by jumping off that same wall.

On a more serious note when I was perhaps 5 years old we came upon a woman in the center of the bridge on the wrong side of the railing, speaking to passersby and threatening to jump. We double-timed it to the library to call the authorities. When an officer arrived he approached and spoke gently for a few minutes before suddenly grabbing and pulling her back over the rail onto the sidewalk.

“My friends and I used to hang out underneath the bridge,” Joe remembered. “Someone had hung a tire swing there, and it had quite a long rope attached to it. We would swing from one side of Klingle road to the other. In hindsight it was probably pretty dangerous.” He recalled recently making a special trip to view a family of hawks near the Kennedy-Warren. “They made me smile at a time [during lockdown] when smiles were pretty few and far between.”

Our sister Cathy shared, “I love that bridge so much and I can’t count the number of times I walked over it coming home from school or going to the library, sometimes meeting up with Poppa on one side or the other for a soda at Zoo Bar or Gallagher’s. I could never cross it without pausing to look down for a moment or two.” The view from either side is delightful almost any time of year, as is the view from the valley below.

Our Catholic school was 1/2 block from our home. A small group of us schoolboys decided to walk to the 7/11. As we reached the stone benches truant officers in a dark sedan pulled up. “Our school is closed today,” we told them. We were instructed to get in the car. Upon reaching the empty school building they told us, “You’re right. Okay, get out.” We watched the car pull off and, sighing, set out once again.

“I’ve crossed that bridge more than any other,” said Joe. I think each of us siblings would agree, and even more heartily endorse Cathy’s “I love that bridge so much!” At its construction it was said the life of the span was 50-100 years. It will be 90 this January, and looks like it will be there for some time to come. Why don’t you stop by for a visit?

¹ “The original Calvert Street Bridge was moving – quite literally” https://househistoryman.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-original-calvert-street-bridge-was.html

² Williams, Paul K. and Kelton C. Higgins, Cleveland Park (Images of America Series), © 2003 Arcadia Publishing, page 21

³ “Klingle Bridge Near Completion,” The Washington Sunday Star, January 10, 1932 pg. B-5

⁴ “Roadside Sketches,” Washington Evening Star, August 22, 1891 pg. 8