Hains Point Loop

Hains Point Loop circles East Potomac Park, a flat, man-made island between the Washington Channel and the Potomac River in Southwest Washington. It starts by the Jefferson Memorial, where it meets the National Mall Loop. From there it follows Ohio Drive SW about 4 miles around the island and back. The path is one lane of Ohio Drive set aside for people on foot and on bikes. It runs two ways and sits behind a row of parked cars. Japanese cherry trees line much of the drive, and the golf links fill the middle of the island. At the southern tip, Hains Point looks out where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers meet.

• Birders have logged 271 species at Hains Point on eBird, the most of any location in the District of Columbia.
• Crews planted 203 Japanese cherry trees along the park roadway in the spring of 1915 and 133 more in 1916, nearly all of the Kanzan variety.
• The Awakening, a giant half-buried figure by J. Seward Johnson Jr., rose from the ground at Hains Point from 1980 until it was moved to National Harbor, Maryland, in 2008.
• The East Potomac golf course opened its first nine holes on July 7, 1920.
• In the 1920s the park gained a teahouse, a campground for tourists, and horse stables.
• During World War I, temporary barracks for soldiers went up in the park and victory gardens covered much of the ground.
• The Potomac River, the Washington Channel, and the Anacostia River all meet at Hains Point.
• A barnacle goose, an ultra-rare visitor, drew a crowd of birders to Hains Point in 2020.

Every foot of this loop rests on mud the Army Corps of Engineers pulled from the bottom of the Potomac River. For most of the 1800s, the Potomac Flats were mud and marsh at the city's edge. In 1870, the Corps began dredging the river to deepen the ship channel. Five years later, it proposed filling the flats with the dredged spoil. A flood in 1881 added urgency. By 1882, Major Peter Conover Hains had finished most of the dredging and reclamation. Hains also designed the Tidal Basin and set how river water flows into it. On March 3, 1897, Congress set the new ground aside to be held forever as a park for the recreation and pleasure of the people. Dredging went on into the 1910s. In 1915 and 1916, crews planted Japanese cherry trees along the roadway. The golf course opened its first nine holes in 1920, and a teahouse, a tourist campground, and stables followed. Until 1949, The island's southern tip carries Hains's name. In July 2023, the National Park Service began turning one lane of Ohio Drive into a two-way path for people on foot and on bikes, protected behind parked cars.

• East Potomac ParkMILE 1.3Directions
• Hains PointMILE 1.8Directions
• East Potomac Golf LinksMILE 3Directions

• National Park Service · East Potomac Park, Hains Point
• Wikipedia · East Potomac Park
• Washingtonian · DC birders flocking to save Hains Point
• National Park Service · East Potomac Park safety improvements news release
• Histories of the National Mall · Potomac Flats
• National Park Service · Thomas Jefferson Memorial Construction
• WHRO Public Media · A judge halted D.C. golf course renovations. Trump says they'll still start next month