Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail

The Center Loop, the heart of the downtown heritage trail along Seventh, F, and 10th streets, focuses on Washington at the time of the Civil War. This is the neighborhood of Clara Barton, Walt Whitman, and John Wilkes Booth, and an area often visited by Abraham Lincoln. The West Loop takes you into a former residential neighborhood. Jefferson Davis attended one of its churches before the Civil War, and President Lincoln attended another during the conflict. The East Loop continues the story of the struggle for equal rights for all citizens. Here Daniel Webster worked to hold the Union together, and in 1862, eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation, Washington's old City Hall was the site of "compensated emancipation" in the District.