Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens

This guide to Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C. follows Walter Shaw, a Civil War veteran who lost most of his right arm at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, and how he bought a stretch of marshy Anacostia riverbank in 1882 and began digging out an old ice pond by hand. It traces how that single pond grew into dozens more, filled with water lilies he eventually sold into Washington's flower markets, and how his daughter Helen Shaw Fowler later took over the business. Best walked slowly along the dikes between ponds, in the early morning when the lilies are open.