The Burleith History Group was formed to support Burleith’s 90th birthday activities in 2013 by researching our community’s past. The images above represent three projects led by this group. In June 2014, the group completed the restoration of the Daniel Boone monument on the grounds of Duke Ellington School of the Arts (formerly The Western High School). The center image is the cover of a pictorial history of Burleith published in 2017 as part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. The restoration of Burleith’s five fire call boxes was done in collaboration with the Burleith call box committee and completed in 2016. Other ongoing projects include collecting oral histories of long-time Burleith residents and a “this day in Burleith history” project focusing on identifying events that happened in Burleith for each of the 366 days of the year, including February 29.

Minutes of History Group Meetings

The Burleith History Group is on hiatus but the minutes below shed light on its earlier work.
January 2017
October 2015
January 2015
2014 Meetings
2013 Meetings

Burleith Historical Documents

This collection of documents includes histories, maps, materials related to the Burleith Citizens Association, press clips, and other miscellaneous documents.  More →

Burleith History in Pictures

The Burleith History Group worked with Arcadia Publishing to produce a book on Burleith as part of Arcadia's Images of America series. Published in 2017 and co-authored by Burleith residents and History Group members Ross Schipper and Dwane Starlin, the book documents the rich history of Burleith through historic photographs and captions. (Arcadia is the nation's leading local history publisher of local and regional pictorial histories.) Schipper and Starlin led the project and worked with the Georgetown Neighborhood Library (Peabody Room), George Washington University Gelman Library (Burleith Archives), the Historical Society of Washington, DC, and the collections of current and former Burleith residents to obtain images. They sought original photographs or slides that contributed to the history of Burleith.

On March 25, 2017, Ross Schipper gave a book talk in the Peabody Room of the Georgetown Neighborhood Library. Entitled Burleith: From Scotland to Shannon & Luchs, his talk traced the history of the Burleith neighborhood from 17th-century Scotland to the beginning of the Shannon & Luchs Burleith development in 1923.

Archives of the Burleith Newsletter

Volume 1 of the Burleith newsletter was published in 1926. PDFs of most Burleith Bells from September 2004 to the current issue (as well as an assortment of pre-2004 issues) may be viewed and/or downloaded by selecting the month and year and clicking “Submit.” (Please note that in recent years the Bell was not published in July or August. Since 2016, the Bell has typically been published in March, June, October, December, although these dates have also fluctuated.)