From Reservoir to Reading

Mathilde D. Williams started working for the DC Public Library system in 1918 and served as librarian and curator of the Georgetown Branch Library’s Peabody Room from 1950 to 1978.  In the March 1935 issue of The Journal of the Education Association of DC she described the goal of the Georgetown branch, “Its location on the crest of the Rock of Dumbarton is symbolic of the high purpose of the Public Library as the institution which keeps alight the lamp of learning after formal educational agencies have completed their task.”

DC Municipal Architect Nathan C. Wyeth designed the library in the Georgian architectural style, the prevailing style found in Georgetown in the 18th century.  In 1934 Congress provided $150,000 for the construction of the building, its furnishings and equipment.  An additional $30,000 was appropriated the following year to initially stock the library (today this total would equal nearly $3 million). 

Ground for the construction of the library was broken on December 22, 1934 and in slightly over nine months the doors were open with about 200 borrowers registering for library cards and 600 books being checked out on the first day of business. Perched atop the library's cupola is a weathervane in the shape of the "lamp of learning" that Miss Williams spoke of.

Fast forward to today and the"new" Georgetown Branch Library, reopened October 2010 after a devastating April 2007 fire that nearly destroyed this Georgetown landmark and with it the contents of the Peabody Room, a special collection of Georgetown neighborhood history.  The library was completely gutted to the outer walls and floors and reconstructed to 21st century standards, but still "feeling" like it originally did when it opened.

The library's prominent site though, overlooking Georgetown, the Potomac River, and Virginia, had a far earlier use for the public good…as the site of the Washington Aqueduct’s “High Service Reservoir.”

Designed in 1852 by the Corps of Engineer’s Lt. Montgomery C. Meigs, construction of the reservoir (eventually known as the Georgetown or Wisconsin Avenue Reservoir) started in 1859 and was in full operation by June 1865. Measuring 120 feet in diameter and 50 feet high, the reservoir was filled by means of a hydraulic ram, allowing residents of Georgetown too high to originally receive water to thus obtain service via gravity flow.  Lined on the inside with plaster, the reservoir was reinforced with flat bands of wrought iron embedded in the masonry to restrain tensile stresses.

In 1871 the Corps commissioned architect Paul J. Pelz to spruce up the utilitarian structure by designing an elaborate cast-iron cornice on the top of the dome.  The cornice was surmounted by six-foot-high dolphins whose tails were intertwined around a trident.  Under each pair of dolphins was a large gilded cartouche with the monogram “W.A” for Washington Aqueduct.  Pelz also designed a decorative cast iron fence supported by posts, each topped by a trident.  The dolphins can be seen along the top of the reservoir in accompanying photograph.

In 1896 a larger elevated high-service reservoir was put into operation on Reno Road in Tenleytown, thus ending the Wisconsin Avenue Reservoir’s three decades of service.  Demolition of the structure began in early 1932 to make way for the planned library. Today only the original 1859 stone retaining wall remains and a portion of the 1871 iron fence. The Friends of Book Hill Park re-erected a section of the original fence along Reservoir Road, the only reminder of what once occupied this site.