The Kingman Park Historic District, located at the northeastern end of today’s Capitol Hill, was principally developed during the late 1920s through 1940s as a residential neighborhood for African Americans. The district was part of a larger area that until that time, was underdeveloped due to a lack of basic infrastructure and unhealthy and unsanitary conditions caused by the tidal flats along the Anacostia River. As the city expanded its infrastructure services easterly beyond 13th Street NE, and as the reclamation of the Anacostia River undertaken by the Corps of Engineers reached the section of the river bordering today’s Kingman Park in the late 1920s, the area became ripe for speculative real estate development. Real estate developers such as Charles Sager who was the first and most prolific builder and developer of Kingman Park housing, seized the opportunity to build rows of residences for middle-class homebuyers on previously undeveloped or underdeveloped land.
Read more about this at DC Historic Sites