Glen Echo Park Historic Entrance

The main entrance to the amusement park was rebuilt in 2003 as a replica of the 1940 version.

NPS / Nathan King

Quick Facts

Amenities

1 listed

Wheelchair Accessible

Glen Echo Park began in 1891 as a National Chautauqua Assembly "to promote liberal and practical education." By 1911, it transformed into DC's premier amusement park until it closed in 1968.

In 1960, students from Howard University, inspired by the Greensboro, NC, lunch counter sit-ins, created the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) and organized sit-ins and picketing at Glen Echo Park. NAG’s first action at the Park was a sit-in on the carousel. Five black students were arrested, and the legality of their arrests was debated in U.S. Supreme Court (Griffin v. Maryland). In June 1964, their arrests were overturned with four other similar cases immediately before the passage of the Civil Rights Act which outlawed public segregation.

Since 1971, the National Park Service has owned and operated the site and today, with the help of the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture, offers year-round cultural and recreational activities.

The National Park Service funded a 2019 project through the African American Civil Rights Grant Program, which works to document, interpret, and preserve the sites and stories related to the African American struggle to gain equal rights as citizens, to delevop a documentary film discussing the significance of this property related to the Civil Rights Movement.