Last updated: December 6, 2023
Person
Walter “Ranger Mac” McDowney
Joe Lapp
Quick Facts
Significance:
Ranger at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, first African American to win the Freeman Tilden Award
Walter “Ranger Mac” McDowney’s legend looms large at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. During his tenure at the park, he helped to bring children from the community into the park as the park’s first Junior Rangers. He was the first African American to win the Freeman Tilden Award for Ranger of the Year. Ranger Mac’s legacy is felt in the park to this day.
Walter McDowney was born in Poolesville Maryland in 1948. His family lived in different parts of DC but finally settled across the street from the gardens on Pond Street. As a boy, he was never very interested in traditional activities like football and basketball. Mack recalls from his childhood,
“[The Kenilworth Courts Recreation Center] was a place for the young ones to hang out, you could play ball and do all kinds of things up there. And I remember going up there a few times getting involved in some of the games that they were doing, but I just kept looking at that fence that separated the woods from the basketball court, and I couldn’t stay out. I just had to go into the woods, had to get in there and see what was growing there, and so all around the Kenilworth Courts I would be in any of the woods that are around here. I stayed in those woods, and in fact, I guess I grew up in there.”
Ranger Mac learned to love nature from his older brother Clarence who was a naturalist. He wanted to know and do everything that his older brother did. They would spend hours in the woods exploring nature. Ranger Mac’s mom would give him books about nature, and he would look up every new plant, animal, or insect that he found.
“It was everything. Whatever I saw, I would go back and look it up. I had all kinds of books. My mother allowed me to get any book I wanted. So I did. I got encyclopedias and nature books. And I just kept reading on them and looking at what was in the park and coming to a conclusion of what it was.”
Unbeknownst to his mom, Ranger Mac kept snakes and even a squirrel named “Speedy” in his house.
“I had never seen a snake before. I needed to know about snakes. I wanted to be an authority on snakes. And I started just studying snakes and looking for them, trying to get as many different kinds that I could. In fact, I used to say that if I walked down to the gardens and didn’t see a snake, it just wasn’t a complete day. It got to the point where when I got the job at George Washington Parkway one of my employees said ‘Any time you go out if you walk with Ranger Mac, you’re going to see a snake.’”
In 1968, Ranger Mac got a job with the Neighborhood Youth Corps as a teenager pulling weeds at the aquatic gardens and the adjacent White House Gardens facility. This was the start of his career outdoors.
“I was down in the gardens almost every chance I got just following the ranger around and— one ranger was from Colorado, she wasn’t really familiar with the flora and fauna here and that was a hobby for me— so I just would follow her around. And I guess she got tired of me correcting her on her tours, so she said “you know you should have my job”, and she told her superintendent that and they hired me as a guide. That’s how I got started with the aquatic gardens.
It was actually more or less a dream come true. I couldn’t imagine anyone would pay me to do something I would ordinarily do for free. I would just talk to people in the park and tell them what I was seeing and what I saw. But when the Park Service said, “We’re going to pay you,” I said, “What? You’re going to pay me to do this?! Okay. I’ll take the money, but I can’t imagine why you would want to pay me for doing this.”
After a stint working for the C & P phone company, Ranger Mac came back to the National Park Service in 1978 and became a full-time ranger with the help of Rheudine Davis, a community leader. A few years later the neighborhood was experiencing a crime wave. Visitor’s vehicles were being broken into. Ranger Mac often knew who was committing the crimes and had the courage to confront them.
“I remember once, a gentleman came and said, ‘Mac, we don’t want to rob the people in your park anymore. But we need a car.” (laughter) I said, “Well, you can’t get one from our parking lot. You’ve got to go someplace else and get you a car.” I said, “take the bus”!
Ranger Mac and Rheudine Davis decided to enlist some children from the community to be the park’s first Junior Rangers. The boys were given uniforms that were made from boy scout uniforms. They added patches and badges to the uniforms to make them special for the boys. They would spend summer days and after-school hours as volunteers helping with tours, working on exhibits, clearing trails and looking after visitor’s cars. The Junior Rangers became legendary. They would go on camping trips once a year to Shenandoah National Park, Catoctin Mountain Park, and even Gettysburg National Battlefield. Ranger Mac would ask local department stores for donations and buy discounted or returned tents for gear. A few of the Junior Rangers went on to have careers in the National Park Service.
Ranger Mac was a full-time ranger with the National Park Service from 1978-1993. He worked at Kenilworth, Rock Creek, Mary McLeod Bethune Historic House, Greenbelt Park, Great Falls Park, the George Washington National Parkway, and National Capital Parks-East Headquarters. He was honored as the Freeman Tilden Award Ranger of the Year in 1985. It is the highest award presented to a National Park Service interpreter. He was the first African American to win that award.
When asked what his favorite thing about working at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Ranger Mac said:
“Oh goodness. I like people. I like meeting new people and making friends. I think probably the best thing that I could get out— because I could think about the different birds that I was able to see and not see any place else. I can think about the things that I learned about insects— but I think that my being able to meet all these different people, and to become endeared in their hearts as well as to have a spot in my heart for them, probably is the best thing that could have happened.”
Ranger Mac is enjoying the retired life but still gets out into his beloved nature as much as he can. He led some Kenilworth Rangers on a nature discovery walk recently and taught us a lot and told us some great stories. As a legend of Kenilworth, we honor Ranger Mac’s dedication and service.