SRO at Burleith Book Talk

The audience occupied every available seat in the room; some attendees stood, perched on windowsills, and even sat on the floor. Photo by Linda Brooks.

By Linda Brooks

It was standing room only when over 50 people turned out on Saturday, March 25, for the Burleith book talk and signing by co-author Ross Schipper at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library’s Peabody Room. Great speaker (no prejudice from his wife, of course) and lively discussion! The book is the latest in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series and can be ordered at arcadiapublishing.com.

The may 20 book launch party will celebrate co-authors ross schipper and dwane starlin as well as those who contributed photos to the book. Photo by Alex Frederick.

Entitled Burleith: From Scotland to Shannon & Luchs, the talk consisted of excerpts from the new pictorial history of the Burleith neighborhood by Ross and his co-author, Dwane Starlin. Ross began his talk with a 1654 map of Scotland showing the place name “Barlyth” from which the Burleith neighborhood derived its name. Later Scottish maps show the spellings “Barleith” and even later “Burleith.”

From that starting point, Ross presented various significant events that traced the neighborhood’s development from these early beginnings. The presentation ended with the Shannon & Luchs real estate firm’s development of Burleith in the early 1920s, which accounts for 60 percent of the homes in today’s Burleith. Interesting questions arose, both from the slides and from looking at the book that many attendees had already purchased. Many of their questions concerned historical details about their own homes, some of which are included in the book.

Twenty-eight books were purchased and carefully signed by Ross after the talk. Several attendees from outside Burleith excitedly discussed the possibility of having an Arcadia book for their own neighborhoods. 

Ross's slides, such as this one showing a 1955 map of burleith, were very effective and stimulated many excellent questions from the crowd. Photo by Alex Frederick.