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Real Estate
Manufacturing at 1125 D Street, NE
One Building’s Various Uses
T
oday, there is only one industry on Capitol Hill: The federal government. Whether you
work for it, or work on it, or provide
those that do with goods and services, without that big building with the
dome, there would be precious little
happening in our neighborhood.
It was not always thus. For many
years, businesses both great and small
populated the Hill, producing beer,
bricks, ice, ice cream, wagons, soft
drinks, optical instruments, and pie for
distribution across the city and beyond.
Some of these businesses were large,
like the two beer breweries, but most
were smaller operations
Pies on the Hill
One location that managed to
house several of these operations was
1125 D Street NE. Built in 1860s or
Advertisement for Kern’s Pies from January 1, 1915,
Washington Times (LOC)
by Robert S. Pohl
early 1870s, it was converted to a pie factory in
the late 1870s by Henry
Kern. Kern, a German
émigré, had previously
run a pie factory on East
Capitol Street. He married Carrie R. Koons, the
daughter of Henry Koons,
a gardener and blacksmith who owned most of
the land around 1125 D
Street, NE.
Kern moved into the
new store along with his
wife and children. For
a number of years, the
Kern Pie company was
a frequent feature in advertisements of Washington papers, boasting
of the merits of the pies. Detail of 1909 Baiste map of DC. Kern’s Bakery is in the upper
right corner (LOC)
According to the ads,
Kern’s pies were “as
ery. The contents were not as described
necessary to the real
Thanksgiving dinner as the turkey on the labels, but rather the leftovers
itself.” The copy was adjusted for from orange juice manufacturing that
had been reconstituted with some
other holidays.
In 1899, Kern decided to ex- other ingredients. Kern, as the injured
pand the store significantly. He party, escaped any fines, which were
bought a strip of land next to his paid by the manufacturer.
shop from his father-in-law, Henry
Koons, and proceeded to build a Trouble with the law
In the 1920s, Kern, now well past
two-story addition, as well as raising the roof on part of the original 60 years old, decided to get out of the
building. His pie manufacturing baking business. In 1922, he rented
grew rapidly from that point, and out the premises to the Halley Ice Co,
advertisements for Kern’s pies were run by one George F. Hoover. The ice
frequent in the newspapers of the business did not last long, and so Kern
rented his premises to Ellis Duke, who
time.
Not all was simple for Kern. On started the Duke Bottling Works. In
May 23, 1912, five cases of crushed contrast to other bottling concerns on
oranges were seized at Kern’s bak- the Hill, and even the Eagle Bottling
capitalcommunitynews.com H 85
Exterior Shot (Tom Kavanagh, Capitol Realty Team)
Company - which Duke
had run before - this enterprise chose not to advertise
or otherwise announce
its presence. The reason
for this became clear in
1929, when the Duke
Bottling Works were
padlocked on order of
the DC Supreme Court.
The charge? The “manufacture, sale and possession” of liquor, as the
Washington Post reported on March 26, 1929.
The article continued
in explaining that, during
a raid on the premises on
November 12 of the previous year, the police had
discovered “78 half-gallons of whisky, 44 cases
and 2 kegs of beer and
17 bottles of wine.” This
being during the height
of prohibition, there was
no doubt that this was
a clear violation of the
law. And Duke knew as
much, having been arrested for a similar offense not six months
earlier. Duke once more
managed to avoid any jail
time, and was arrested
again in 1932 - less than
a year before President
Roosevelt once again relegalized the manufacture and sale of alcohol.
erty. Kern’s son sold it in
1943 and later that decade, it
was taken over by the Capi-
A new beginning?
The next few decades
were quiet for this prop-
A bottle from the Duke Bottling Works
(chosi.net)
tal Regraining Company,
who produced lithographic
plates. In 1965 the company, now renamed Durolith,
moved to Easton, Maryland.
About ten years later,
1125 D was used by the
oddly named R&R Driftwood corporation. Much
like Duke before them, the
new owners made no attempts to advertise their
services, and the reason for
this became clear after a
major international police
investigation, which ended
with the arrest of two men
for smuggling heroin. 1125
D had been used as a destination for the drug being mailed from Thailand.
The drugs had been intercepted in the mails
in New York, and only
empty packages – carefully prepared by the
police – made it to the
address, where it was
picked up by one of the
smugglers, who then
drove it to the other’s
house – at which point
the police stepped in.
About ten years later
one George Salah attempted to convert the
old print shop into a pizzeria. Unfortunately for
him, the property was
now zoned for residential use only, and thus his
efforts went for naught.
Today, it is once
again possible to buy a
pie baked on the Hill,
possibly signaling a resurgence in manufacturing, though the days of
beer brewing or printing are presumably over.
However, if you are interested in owning this
piece of Hill history,
stop by the Capitol Realty Team on 7th Street
for an opportunity to
visit the premises. No
drug dealers, please.
Follow the progress of Robert Pohl’s latest book at www.
facebook.com/RobertPohlAuthor. H
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capitalcommunitynews.com H 87