[2] During the American Civil War, Union forces built in the Washington, D.C. area, included 68 major enclosed forts used to house soldiers and store artillery and other supplies.

However, the bill allowing for the purchase of the former forts, which had been turned back over to private ownership after the war, failed to pass both the House of Representatives and Senate.

[10] During the Great Depression, crews from the Civilian Conservation Corps embarked on projects to improve and maintain the parks, which were still under the control of District authority at that time.

[12] The Second World War interrupted these plans, and post-war budget cuts instituted by President Harry S. Truman postponed the construction of the Fort Drive once more.

In 1949, President Truman approved a supplemental appropriation request of $175,000 to construct "a swimming pool and associated facilities" at Fort Stanton Park.

[13] In 1963, when President John F. Kennedy began pushing Congress to finally build the Fort Circle Drive,[14] many in Washington and the National Park Service were openly questioning whether the plan had outgrown its usefulness.

[15] By this time, Washington, D.C. had grown past the ring of forts that had protected it a century earlier, and city surface roads already connected the parks, albeit not in as linear a route as envisioned.

The Rock Creek Park unit administers Forts Bunker Hill, Totten, Slocum, Stevens, DeRussy, Reno, Bayard, Battery Kemble and Battleground National Cemetery in the District of Columbia.