Date Visited: June 13, 2022
Route Taken: Walk from Tenleytown Metro Station – 1 mile (round-trip)
Type of Terrain: Urban park with a paved path
Elevation: 409 feet
Ancestral Lands: Nacotchank (Anacostan)
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
After the First Battle of Manassas in 1861, the Army tasked Brigadier General John G. Barnard with building a series of defensive fortifications around Washington, D.C. to protect it from Confederate attacks. This particular location to the northwest side of Washington was chosen for one of the Civil War forts because its higher elevation allowed the Union Army to protect the Rockville Pike – one of the critical routes into the capital city.
The fort was quickly constructed by the 119th Pennsylvania Regiment, and originally named Fort Pennsylvania in their honor. However, the name was subsequently changed to Fort Reno in 1863 in memory of Major General Jesse Lee Reno (1823-1862).
A native of Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) and West Point graduate, Reno was known as a “soldier’s soldier” who often fought alongside his men without a sword or any sign of his rank. This lack of formality may have been his undoing though.
On September 14, 1862, then-Brigadier General Reno stopped ahead of his troops to reconnoiter Confederate soldiers advancing up the road at Fox’s Gap, Maryland. The halt occurred at dusk, and as Reno moved ahead of the troops, a rookie Union soldier from the 35th Massachusetts mistook Reno for Confederate cavalry and shot him in the chest, mortally wounding him at the age of 39.
Reno was posthumously promoted to the rank of Major General, and Fort Pennsylvania was renamed in his honor in the middle of the war. This military fort eventually became the largest and strongest armed of the many fortifications protecting the nation’s capital during the Civil War, with a brigade of 3,000 soldiers and a dozen of heavy artillery guns. Fort Reno and its nearby neighbor, Fort Stevens, were also one of the only parts of the District of Columbia to see combat during the war.
Today, Point Reno – the District’s highest point – sits inside Fort Reno Park, which is managed my the National Park Service. It consists of a grassy hill with athletic fields and a summer concert venue.
Other geographic locations also named in Major General Reno’s honor, include the cities of Reno, Nevada; Reno, Ohio; El Reno, Oklahoma, and Reno, Pennsylvania. Two more small military outposts were named after him as well: one in the Dakota Territory (Fort Reno, 1865) and the other in Oklahoma (Fort Reno, 1874).
TRIP SUMMARY
I was in desperate need of a morale boost after being forced to turn back on my climb of Mt. Rainier (Washington’s high point) due to bad weather in early June. Watching my chance to summit my 45th state high point slip through my fingers wasn’t fun. But I had a plan B.
Right on the heels of my Mt. Rainier bid, I was heading out to the East Coast to begin a 335-mile cycling adventure from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh, PA. So it was time for an easy win. I might not get to summit Washington’s high point this year, but I could surely get to the top of the other Washington (as in Washington, D.C., right?)
And so, the day before my cycling trip on the C&O Towpath and Great Allegheny Passage began, I took a quick side trip out to the northwestern side of town for the sole purpose of ticking another high point off my list. It may not be a state high point (yet), but I wanted something in the “win” column.
Getting myself to Fort Reno was easy enough. The Metro comes within a few blocks of Washington, D.C.’s high point. All I had to do was swipe my Metro card and take the red line toward Tenleytown, a historically Black neighborhood that flourished after the Civil War with a unique history all its own.
As I entered the park from the south, I noticed two towers in the distance beyond a large green berm. One was the red-brick tower, and to its right sat a picturesque 60-foot pumping station built to resemble the turret of a French Norman castle.
Despite their height and appeal, neither of these towers was part of the historic Fort Reno, though. The U.S. Government disassembled most of the military fort immediately after the Civil War so the land could be returned to the Dyer family, who used it as a farm and orchard. The Dyers later subdivided their acreage for row homes, creating a vibrant racially mixed community.
In 1896, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reacquired the land for the federal government. The tall red brick water tower was built in 1903, along with a Bavarian-style home for the supervisor of the Reno water plant.
The second, more ornate brick tower didn’t come along until 1928, when the Government razed the historic row homes to build a 5.5-million-gallon underwater reservoir. The top of this second castle-themed tower also features a unique weather vane that looks like a silhouette of a little Dutch boy carrying a pail of water.
I began walking toward the two towers, assuming they must lie near the highest point in D.C., but I felt compelled to stop first and read a National Park Service sign that shared some of the history of Fort Reno. Down near the bottom of the NPS sign was a photo of a geodetic marker with the following words:
The benchmark was placed by the Washington, D.C. Surveyors Association after surveying and establishing the highest natural ground of the District in 2007. The wayside and benchmark for the highpoint were made possible by the donations of the Highpointers Foundation in cooperation with the Highpointers Club.
Following the dedication ceremony in April 2008, the highpoint officially became known as Point Reno. The highland behind the fenced area is man-made and, therefore, not the highest natural point.
The natural highpoint is marked with a benchmark just 180 feet north east of this sign. Can you find it?
Well, that was interesting! The towers and berm I’d been so focused on weren’t the high point. I might have gone in the wrong direction and wasted a lot of time searching on man-made berm, but for this NPS sign. Now I just needed to figure out which direction was northeast of me so I could walk the final 180 feet to the true high point of Washington, D.C.
As I scanned my surroundings, I spotted a second NPS sign on a rise and started walking toward it and away from the prominent towers.
Sure enough, the second sign led me right to the official benchmark just beyond it. Buried in the soft green grass, where you might actually miss it, sat a discrete geodetic survey marker announcing that I’d found Point Reno at 409 feet above sea level. I’d made it to the top of Washington, D.C.
With nothing more to explore but a grassy park, I decided to head back to the paved path to check out the towers, too.
When I crested the path paved, I noted quite a bit of free street parking on Fort Drive NW (for those who don’t want to ride the Metro to the high point). Then I made my way over to get a few close-up photos of the two water towers, which were shielded from visitors by a tall chainlink fence.
I later learned there was a third red brick tower on the opposite side of the road that cleverly used Fort Reno’s two water towers as camouflage. This third tower, known as the Cartwheel Tower, was built in 1961 at the height of the Cold War.
Unlike the other two water towers, the Cartwheel Tower once held a classified military microwave dish antenna. The project was designed to link Washington, D.C. with the rest of the mid-Atlantic in the event that a Soviet missile attack destroyed other, more visible communications systems.
The Cartwheel Tower’s location was selected for the same reason that Fort Reno was placed here in the first place: it was near the city’s highest elevation and would provide an advantage for line-of-sight communications all the way to Pennsylvania. A military crew worked inside the tower 24 hours a day, and beneath them sat a two-story bunker that housed generators, food, and provisions should World War III break out.
Of course, technology radically improved over the 20th and 21st centuries, and the top-secret project was no longer needed. The Cartwheel Tower was turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which found a new civilian use for the 100-foot tower. Meanwhile, the two water towers at Fort Reno continue to be managed by the National Park Service.
And so, with relatively little effort, my visit to Washington, D.C.’s high point was complete. I was met with blue skies and was able to put my unsuccessful Mt. Rainier bid to rest. I could head to the 2022 Annual Highpointers Konvention (in just two weeks) with a recent win – even if my state higpointing tally remained at 44.
DETAILS
When to Visit: Point Reno is open year-round.
Getting There: Due to the heavy traffic in and around Washington, D.C., the easiest way to visit this high point is via the DC Metro. Fort Reno Park is located just north of the Tenleytown-AU stop on the Metro’s Red Line.
Fees/Permits: None.
Parking: There is limited (but free) parking is available on Fort Dr. NW and along Derussey St. NW.
Accessibility: Suitable for all ages and abilities.
Bonus: Washington, D.C.’s highest natural point is only 409 feet in elevation, which makes it lower than the top of the Washington Monument (Washington, D.C.’s highest man-made point at 555 feet in elevation). Visitors can easily see both high points in a single day. Same day, timed-entry tickets for the Washington Monument are free and can be obtained from the Washington Monument Lodge beginning at 8:45 am each day. Reservations for tickets can also be made up to 30 days prior to your visit and cost $1.
Resources:
- Fort Reno (National Park Service)
- Fort Reno Park – A Brief History of Reno City
- Major General Jesse L. Reno
- Washington Monument (National Park Service)
