Historic Districts
The Anacostia Historic District is an area of approximately 20 squares in southeast Washington. Uniontown, the core of the historic district was incorporated in 1854 and was one of the first suburbs in the District of Columbia. It was designed to be financially available to Washington's working class, most of who were employed across the river at the Navy Yard.
In January 1999, the African American Heritage Preservation Foundation, Inc., nominated the Anacostia Historic District and its surrounding community to the National Trust to be considered as one of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in the country. The district—located in the southeast quadrant of the nation's capital—encompasses roughly 20 city squares, contains approximately 550 buildings dating from circa 1854–1930, and displays the city's richest collection of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, small-scale, frame and brick, working-class housing. Incorporated in 1854 as Uniontown, the district has since expanded to include the Griswold subdivision and its immediately adjacent residential and commercial areas.