Putting a name to Blagden Run

This little stream emerges from a culvert along a bend at the base of Blagden Avenue, below the hills and ample houses of Crestwood. It continues down the valley, flowing on the surface, diving through pools and rapids, then joins Rock Creek.

I’ve never known what to call this stream, but the McAtee/Biological Society of Washington’s gazetteer of 1918¹ gives it a name: Blagden Run, after Thomas Blagden, who owned the nearby mill.

Blagden Run and other lost streams in the neighborhood. Blue lines are ● historic streams . Purple lines follow ● culverts and sewers . The few ● surviving streams that still flow on the surface appear in dark blue.

Blagden Run flows through a culvert for all but the last quarter-mile of its length.

A page from the McAtee/Biological Society of Washington gazetteer.