By Mark Walston |
Photo illustration by Alice Kresse; Maloney concrete photo by Don Wetmore
In 1873, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opened its new Metropolitan Branch, a modern rail line running straight through the heart of Montgomery County. Towns such as Gaithersburg, Rockville and Silver Spring, all selected as stops on the new line, saw prosperity come in tow, with shops and homes rising around stylish new passenger stations. When the train finally reached Bethesda decades later, all it brought was industrial blight.
Originally, the Metropolitan Branch ran too far east to have any impact on Bethesda’s development. The village of the 1870s remained little more than a general store, a blacksmith shop and a handful of houses gathered around the crossroads of Wisconsin Avenue and Old Georgetown Road.