Clara Barton National Historic Site

Take a free ranger tour of the big yellow Glen Echo house where Red Cross founder Clara Barton lived and worked her last 15 years.

5801 Oxford Road, Glen Echo, MD 20812 · Glen Echo, MD

About Clara Barton National Historic Site

Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, lived in this Glen Echo house from 1897 until her death in 1912, and it also served as an early Red Cross headquarters and warehouse. Part of the lumber came from buildings the Red Cross put up after the 1889 Johnstown Flood, and the inside was laid out like a river steamboat around a central gallery. Free guided tours of the first floor last 30 to 45 minutes. The house is unfurnished and the upper floors stay closed for structural reasons. It sits next to Glen Echo Park, with a small lot at the end of Oxford Road.

#historic house
#national historic site
#red cross
#guided tour
#women's history

What's around here?

The closest stops to Clara Barton National Historic Site, ordered by straight-line distance. A few more like it, plus some different kinds of fun so you can build a full day.

Sports & Outdoors
Glen Echo Park
No admission fee
Former Chautauqua grounds and amusement park near Washington, DC, now a National Park Service site offering arts and recreation.
Right next doorSwitch it up: Sports & Outdoors
Museums
CIA Museum
No admission fee
Collection of declassified intelligence artifacts at CIA Headquarters, viewable mainly online.
Transit: reachable by public transit
1.1 mi awaySwitch it up: Museums
Sports & Outdoors
Bradley Park
Check prices
Small Montgomery Parks neighborhood park in Bethesda with a playground, soccer field, tennis courts, and a community garden.
2.4 mi awaySwitch it up: Sports & Outdoors
Sightseeing
Fort Marcy Park
No admission fee
Preserved Civil War earthwork fort protecting the Chain Bridge approach to Washington, D.C.
2.5 mi awayMore like this
Sightseeing
History Buff
Embassy Row
No admission fee
Stroll Massachusetts Avenue past Gilded Age mansions turned embassies, with flags and statues of world figures on the way.
Transit: reachable by public transit
5.2 mi awayMore like this
Sightseeing
Local Gem
Kahlil Gibran Memorial Garden
No admission fee
Sit on limestone benches carved with Kahlil Gibran's words beside a star-shaped fountain in a quiet wooded garden on Embassy Row.
5.3 mi awayMore like this