Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Object ID |
2009.146.01 |
Title |
Chevy Chase Lake exhibit [?] transcript by Bill Duvall |
Object Name |
Exhibit |
Date |
Circa 1992 |
Creator |
Bill Duvall |
Description |
Chevy Chase Lake exhibit [?] transcript by Bill Duvall Circa 1992 Text is as follows: Chevy Chase Lake PROLOGUE For one hundred years after the founding of Washington, D.C., this part of Maryland south of Jones Bridge Road, east of Brookeville Road and Rock Creek, lay remote from the capital, a patchwork of open fields around occasional farm houses and barns. Senator Francis G. Newlands needed to begin the development of Chevy Chase by linking the distant farmland bought by his Chevy Chase Land Company with central Washington. In 1888, before the coming of automobiles, he founded the Rock Creek Railway Company to build a double-track trolley line from 18th and U Streets, across Rock Creek, northwest to the District line. There the Chevy Chase Land Company took over, continuing the line 1.8 miles straight north. Just to survey this stretch required four men, with horse and wagon, nine days, with six ax-men to clear the way. Beyond Coquelin Run, a tributary of Rock Creek, the line ended at the new B & O Railroad spur line off its main track to Harpers Ferry and points west. The whole seven miles of the track was laid in six months of 1892 at a cost of $1,500,000. At this junction of the two rail lines, well beyond the site of the planned village of Chevy Chase, The Land Company built a wooden-frame car barn, where cars were to be cleaned and repaired, and a brick power plant with towering chimney, to supply electricity for the trolley, street lights and future houses. The plant's turbines were driven by steam, the boilers fired by coal brought on the B&O line, the water drawn from a holding pond created by damming Coquelin Run: Chevy Chase Lake. Along the entire seven mile length of the trolley line the Companies constructed a dirt road, Connecticut Avenue, cut, filled and graded with pick and shovel. It was not bricked until 1913. Just south of the Lake, on the west side of this road, they built four double houses of brick along a lane, Watkins Avenue, for the street car conductors and motormen. Each house had a garden, and a mail box at the road. Across the road from the Lake, the Land Company built a Railway Office, of pressed brick with terra cotta trim. It had an entrance porch, a waiting room for passengers, a ticket office (the round bay), an office for the Superintendent store rooms, and an attic. In 1893 the first telephone on the new line from the city was installed here. The trolley line opened September 17, 1892, bringing city-dwellers out into the cooler countryside. Leaving the city behind at Florida Avenue, passing through open farmland with scattered houses and barns, the passengers saw the four houses already built by the Land Company at Chevy Chase Circle, and then village lots for sale on both sides of the trolley line. At the end of the line they discovered the Lake, three and one half acres of water in a rather bare landscape. The Lake excursion quickly became very-popular. There was a refreshment kiosk. Families had picnics on the shore. There was no swimming, but the ice skating was fine, and there were rowboats for hire from a dock. Children searched among the reeds for turtle, snakes and frogs. In later years, they often sold the frogs, for 10 cents each, to the Columbia Country Club for its dinners. As more people bought lots, built houses and moved out to Chevy Chase Village, the trolley line became an ever more essential link to the city. The Land Company ran a freight car twice a day on the line, free of charge, bringing mail and provisions for the community. In summer, open excursion cars were added for commuters and holiday-makers. In 1895 the line was extended from the Lake to Kensington. That same year Rock Creek Railway became part of the Capital Traction Company. Its President, George Dunlop, lived at Haves Manor just north of the Lake. Herbert Claude, Superintendent of the Maryland part of the trolley line, also lived at the Lake. He had two barns, with horses and ponies for hire. From 1907 to 1917 he rented twenty acres, including the Lake, from the Land Company and extensively developed a number of entertainment concessions: bowling alleys, a shooting gallery, boat swings, a carousel, a pony track with goat carts, a band stand for concerts, a cafe, and a dancing pavilion. This was an orderly and well kept amusement park, green and shaded by day, sparkling with strings of red, white and blue electric lights at night. It was open from May 30 until Labor Day, and every night except Sunday. By 1918 the Lake itself was closed to the public and the variety of amusements curtailed, but music and dancing remained popular. Meyer Davis played here, Irene Castle danced, Kate Smith sang, and the Marine Band gave concerts. In 1925 the Heon family built a summer home across the trolley line from the Lake. Their swimming pool, opened to the public, became a welcome new focus of entertainment. On September 15, 1935, forty-three years after its opening, the trolley line closed, eclipsed by automobiles and the Connecticut Avenue bus line, opened in 1922. The tracks were torn up and sold to Japan. Connecticut Avenue was paved over. While the Lake itself had greatly diminished in size and significance, the name had taken on an expanded meaning: the whole community of homes and businesses which had grown up around the trolley's "Country Terminus", Chevy Chase Lake. EPILOGUE The car barn became a riding school, men an auto body shop, and in 1969 was replaced by 8401 Connecticut, the Lake Office Building. Its parking lot covers the site of the old power plant The amusement park fields are now the site of the 8101 Connecticut Avenue condominiums, built in 1980. The Watkins Avenue brick houses, torn down in the 1950's, are now the site of the newly opened 8100 Connecticut Avenue. The swimming pool was graded over in 1972. The trolley ticket office became Gramma's Antique Shop, and in 1980 the building was moved to Green Valley, Maryland. In 1986 the Baltimore and Ohio line closed. The bed of Chevy Chase Lake is now a deep valley along the south side of Chevy Chase Lake Drive. The Chevy Chase Land Company is grateful for the generous contributions of photographs, maps, ideas and information from: The Chevy Chase Historical Society William W. Duvall Leroy O. King, Jr. The Library of Congress The Montgomery County Historical Society Camille Saum, designer The Henry Arthur Taft Collection Robert A. Truax |