An architect by training, he helped uncover the topography of Washington before the land was tamed into the federal city.
Don Alexander Hawkins, a historical cartographer and architect, studies a map on his light table in 2004. Don Alexander Hawkins, an architect by trade and mapmaker by passion whose historical detective work helped uncover the topography of Washington before its hills, marshes, forests and fields were tamed into the boulevards and monuments of the federal city, died Oct. 5 at his home in Hillsboro, Va. He was 86.by The Washington Post as a “dean” among the region’s residential architects.
To produce the topographical study, which was described as the first of its kind, Mr. Hawkins referred to original maps, surveys, paintings, journals, letters and other archival clues. He finished the fifth draft of the map almost precisely 200 years after L’Enfant drew up his plan for the city. Mr. Hawkins’s work was published in the journal Washington History and is today
Among his insights, Mr. Hawkins offered evidence challenging the prevailing idea that Washington was built on a swamp. “For a riverside location, this city was unusually free of the kind of swampiness one should expect to find,” he said. “I calculated that only one percent of the L’Enfant Plan area was swampy.
Donald Alexander Hawkins was born in Wheeling, W.Va., on April 24, 1937. He grew up in the Washington area, where both his parents worked as cryptanalysts, his mother for the CIA and its wartime predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, and his father for the Army.Mr. Hawkins recalled spending long hours of his childhood and adolescence — including many hours when he should have been in school — exploring Washington and the surrounding area.
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