Oxon Run Trail

The Oxon Run Trail is a paved loop through Oxon Run Park in Ward 8 of Southeast Washington. It follows Oxon Run, a stream set in a concrete channel, up one bank from South Capitol Street to 13th Street SE and back down the other. Congress Heights and Bellevue lie to the west and Washington Highlands to the east. Street crossings at 4th Street, Wheeler Road, Atlantic Street, and 13th Street SE serve as entry points. The path is flat and lit by streetlights. It passes ball fields, playgrounds, picnic pavilions, and the amphitheater at 13th Street and Mississippi Avenue SE. Quotes and facts about Frederick Douglass line the route.

• Oxon Run rises in the Coral Hills area of Prince George's County, Maryland, and flows about 7 miles before it meets Barnaby Run and becomes Oxon Creek.
• A 1978 to 1979 flood-control project built a 7,920 ft concrete-lined channel for the stream from 13th Street SE to South Capitol Street.
• The trail's 208 LED streetlights were designed to be dark-sky friendly.
• Ten bioretention cells along the trail can hold more than 263,000 gallons of stormwater during a 1.2-inch storm.
• An English elm was planted at the trail's opening, the same species that shaded Frederick Douglass during his speeches of the 1870s.
• The federal Oxon Run Parkway upstream holds four northern magnolia bogs, the only ones on National Park Service land.
• Congress Heights, on the trail's west side, was home to the last working farm in the District of Columbia.
• Oxon Run Park covers 106 acres, one of the largest public parks in Washington.

Early maps marked this stream as Oxen Run. It drained a lightly settled valley of plantations, farms, and orchards on its way from Coral Hills in Maryland toward the Potomac. The neighborhoods came later. In 1890 newspaper publisher Arthur Randle founded Congress Heights on the west bank. Washington Highlands grew up on the east side. In the 1930s the National Capital Park and Planning Commission began buying narrow strips of land along the stream for a parkway. A flood in 1937 pushed planners to widen it. In 1971 most of the federal Oxon Run Parkway became Oxon Run Park, a city park run by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation. Tropical Storm Agnes flooded the valley the next year. In 1978 and 1979 crews lined the stream with a concrete channel from 13th Street SE to South Capitol Street. By 2010 the District had drawn up plans to rebuild the old park paths. The District Department of Transportation began work in 2016. Crews rehabilitated the existing path, added nearly a mile of new trail, and installed 208 LED streetlights and ten stormwater bioretention cells. The trail opened in 2018. Mayor Muriel Bowser cut the ribbon on February 17, 2018, before the first Frederick Douglass 5K. In 2022 the District's Department of Energy and Environment presented a plan to remove the concrete lining and plant trees along the banks.

• South Capitol StreetMILE 0Directions
• 4th Street SEMILE 0.9Directions
• 13th Street SEMILE 1.7Directions
• Wheeler Road SEMILE 1.9Directions
• Atlantic Street SEMILE 2.7Directions
• South Capitol StreetMILE 3.3Directions

• DC Department of Parks and Recreation · Frederick Douglass 5K and Oxon Run Trail Ribbon Cutting
• Wikipedia · Oxon Run Park
• Executive Office of the Mayor, District of Columbia · Mayor Bowser Cuts Ribbon on Oxon Run Trail and Frederick Douglass 5K
• Executive Office of the Mayor, District of Columbia · Mayor Bowser to Celebrate Opening of Oxon Run Trail with First Frederick Douglass 5K
• Wikipedia · Oxon Run
• Wikipedia · Congress Heights
• Chesapeake Bay Program · A reimagined Oxon Run Park takes shape in the heart of lower Washington, D.C.