Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens began in the 1880s as the private creation of Walter B. Shaw, a devoted lover of nature. After losing his right arm in the Civil War, Shaw doggedly learned to write with his left hand. In the post-war years, a job as a letter writer for the Treasury Department brought him to settle in Washington, DC.

After marrying Lucy Maria Miller, Shaw purchased more than 30 acres along the Anacostia River from her parents. He soon found his new estate lacking some of the beauty of his native Maine. To remedy this he imported twelve white water lilies from his home state in 1882. By planting them in an abandoned ice pond, Walter Shaw began the aquatic gardens and his life-long hobby of cultivating water plants.

During the 1920s, at their very peak, the aquatic gardens became endangered. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wanted to claim the marshlands, without payment, for flood control purposes. The gardens seemed doomed.

Refusing to give in without a fight, owners Helen Fowler and Charles Shaw rallied the support of the Kenilworth Citizens Association. Together, they successfully lobbied Congress. In 1938 the federal government purchased the aquatic gardens for $15,000 to preserve them as a park. Later renamed Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, they remain essentially unchanged.
Directions: Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens is located in northeast Washington, D.C., near the Maryland boundary along the tidal Anacostia River. The entrance to the Aquatic Gardens is just west of I-295 (Kenilworth Avenue), between Quarles and Douglas Streets, on Anacostia Avenue.

The entrance to Kenilworth Park (recreation area) is located at the westernmost end of Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue, N.E., just off I-295 (Kenilworth Avenue).

Telephone: 202-426-6905