Teddy’s Island: A Walking Tour
Other presidents have monuments, but Theodore Roosevelt has an entire 90-acre island in the middle of the Potomac. Yet the site receives only a fraction of the three million people per year who visit Teddy’s distant cousin FDR.
We’ll take a light 2.5 mile hike around the island, ending at the memorial itself. Along the way, we’ll enjoy the surprisingly serene wetland environment (minutes from downtown!) and learn the island’s history. Has it always been a park? Why is it named after Roosevelt?
We’ll wrap up with a trivia game about Roosevelt himself. Did Teddy really ride a moose, swim with piranhas, create the national parks, laugh in the face of an assassin, and invent the teddy bear? How does the man measure up to the myth?
Here is a map to help you find the start of the tour. Note that the parking lot is closed for repaving, but the island remains accessible by foot, bike, metro, or parking in Rosslyn.
Location
Theodore Roosevelt Island
In the Potomac River near the Key Bridge
Washington,
DC
Meet at the bike rack on the Virginia side of the footbridge to the island, accessible by bike via the Mt. Vernon Trail, by Metro via Rosslyn, or by car via the George Washington Parkway (northbound only).
Past event
Instructor
Geoff Patterson is a KCDC organizer, avid trail runner, and general outdoor enthusiast. When he’s not reading historical fiction, explorer nonfiction, or for KCDC’s Queer Book Club, he is constantly looking for suggestions to add to his never-ending reading queue. (It’s more a stack than a queue; but all that really clarifies is that it’s hard to shake the nerdiness of a day job in software!)