In early August 1861, engineers under Major John G. Barnard, in charge of the defenses of Washington, chose the highest point in the District of Columbia for the construction of a fort, with construction starting in earnest in August 1861 with the arrival of McCall's Division of Pennsylvania Reserves.

[3] Work on the fort was continued by the succession of regiments stationed at the Tennallytown encampment after McCall's division moved to Langley on October 9, 1861.

Subsequently, the Dyer family subdivided the land as a town called Reno, which evolved into a majority Black neighborhood.

[4] Because of the town's roots in the Civil War and some oral histories, there has been a presumption that the original residents were so-called "contrabands," evidence for this theory is scant.

In a report to Montgomery C. Meigs, an Army quartermaster did not describe any settlement in a survey of the occupied Dyer estate.

[8] The 1870 Census likewise suggests the small community of African American families in Reno arrived later.

[9] The town consisted of a handful of families and one church until the 1890s, as African Americans found jobs or themselves sought to live in the growing suburbs.