Joaquin Miller
(September 8, 1837 - February 17, 1913)

Joaquin Miller Cabin, Rock Creek Park,
Beach Drive at Military Rd, Picnic Grove #6, DC.
Administered by the National Park Service..

Miller, the "Poet of the Sierras," built his modest log cabin atop Meridian Hill in the late 1860s, now the site of Malcolm X Park. The Park Service later moved it to this location in Rock Creek Park.

Miller was the pen name of Cincinnatus Heine Miller. He was a colorful character who published essays and over twenty books of poems, including Specimens (1869), Songs of the Sierras (1871), Songs of the Soul (1896), and 49: The Gold Seekers of the Sierras (1910). He worked at various times as a mining-camp cook, lawyer, journalist, Pony Express rider, and was once jailed as a horse thief.

Beltway Poetry Quarterly, "The Poet's Cabin, Joaquin Miller in Washington"

Author photo courtesy of Library of Congress.