Montgomery County History Timeline, 1776-2026

Montgomery County was founded in 1776 when Dr. Thomas Sprigg Wootton, a member of the Maryland Constitutional Convention, introduced a bill to the Maryland General Assembly to divide a much-larger Frederick County into three smaller counties: Frederick, Washington, and Montgomery. The bill passed on September 6, 1776. Montgomery County was named for General Richard Montgomery, a Revolutionary War hero who died in action in 1775 fighting for the Continental Army in Quebec. Montgomery and Washington counties (the latter named for George Washington) were the first in the nation established by elected representatives, and the first in Maryland named for popular Americans as opposed to old world aristocracy.

In the 18th century, the county seat (now Rockville) was called “Williamsburgh,” site of Hungerford’s Tavern where Patriots of Lower Frederick County met in 1774 to protest British injustices to the colonies and to draft the “Hungerford Resolves.”

Williamsburgh (now Rockville) was also frequently called “Montgomery County Courthouse” for its most popular landmark, the first of which was complete in 1779 in adherence to an act of the General Assembly. No known depiction of this original courthouse building has been discovered.

White’s Ferry (originally called Conrad’s Ferry) was one of many ferries that once operated on the Potomac River connecting Maryland and Virginia. Following the Civil War, each boat was named “Jubal Early” in honor of the Confederate general who in 1864 led an army into Maryland on his way to attack Washington, D.C. In 2020, White’s Ferry ceased operation because of a dispute over ownership of the Virginia side landing, and has not reopened despite many attempts to revive it.

The port city of Georgetown, then part of Montgomery County, was ceded to the Federal government along with additional territory to form part of the new capital city, the District of Columbia.

The Maryland General Assembly passed an act to survey, mark, bound and erect Rockville into a town (previously called Williamsburgh and/or Montgomery County Courthouse). The name Rockville was ostensibly chosen for nearby Rock Creek. The surveying was completed in 1803 (pictured below).

After the plan of Rockville was drawn, the first boundary stones were placed: the B.R. (Beginning of Rockville) stone on Vinson Street at Maryland Avenue, and a second stone at West Jefferson Street between Adams and VanBuren Streets. The B.R. stone was rediscovered during construction of the Rockville Public Library in 1971 and re-placed close to its original site, now the location of City Hall.

The Washington Turnpike Company was chartered to build a road from Georgetown to Rockville along the route of a Native American trail and later colonial-era “rolling road” used by farmers to transport tobacco crops to Georgetown.

The sons of Samuel Wade Magruder, Patrick and his brother George, built Magruders Mill on Cabin John Creek. Prior to becoming Librarian of Congress, Patrick Magruder served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1805-1807.

The first class had 30 male students who often boarded with teachers or local residents. Early principals and teachers were religious leaders who offered a classical education. Students without means were able to attend thanks to funds appropriated by the Maryland General Assembly. The Academy closed after World War I.

Considered to be the oldest African American community in upper Montgomery County, Big Woods was first settled by James Spencer in 1813, and later expanded with adjacent land purchased by Rev. Elijah Awkard in 1846, both free Black men. The site of the community is located along Route 118 between Beallsville and Barnesville.

In 1814, the last year of the War of 1812, retreating troops from the Battle of Bladensburg, along with government officials and citizens, fled the burning of the Capitol Building by British troops and found refuge in Montgomery County. President James Madison spent two nights in Brookeville. The Brookeville Academy was incorporated shortly afterward, in January 1815, and given to the care of Trustees who reported to the General Assembly.

This house was originally built by Upton Beall, who served as Clerk of the Court in the county seat of Rockville from 1795 until his death in 1827. Designed in the Federal style after the houses in which Beall had lived in Georgetown, it was the grandest structure in Rockville at the time, and the only one made of brick. Beall’s daughters–Matilda, Jane, and Margaret–lived in the house their entire lives without marrying, and were later joined by a cousin, Amelia Somervell Dawson and her family. The home continued to be used as a private residence until 1965, when it was purchased by the City of Rockville and used for many years as the headquarters of the Montgomery County Historical Society.

The oldest church still in use in Rockville, St. Mary’s historic building still stands near the “mixing bowl” intersection of Veirs Mill Road, Route 355, and Jefferson Avenue. The congregation made plans to erect a modern church building to replace it in 1966, but some parishioners protested the demolition of the old chapel. The modern building was built adjacent to Our Lady’s Chapel (as it is known today) which was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Renowned novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, originally buried in Rockville Cemetery, were re-interred in St. Mary’s cemetery  in 1975.

Founded as early as 1753, the Sandy Spring Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends is one of the oldest Quaker Meetings in Maryland. Property for the Meeting was first donated by James Brooke in 1770, at which time a modest log house was used for worship. The brick Sandy Spring Meeting House was constructed in 1817 and has been in continual use since then. 

Originally known as “An Independent Methodist Church for Colored People of Sandy Spring,” this was the first Black church established in Montgomery County. The Sandy Spring area was home to one of Maryland’s earliest free Black communities, formed by the people emancipated by the surrounding Quaker community shortly after the Revolutionary War.

Construction of the two behemoths of transportation trade routes began the very same day—July 4th. They would compete for dominance over the entirety of their early years. The C&O Canal was completed in 1850, costing approximately $11 million, while the Main Line of the B&O Railroad was finished in 1853, with several branches still in the planning stages (Montgomery County’s Metropolitan Branch to Washington, D.C. would be opened in 1873). The B&O Railroad would ultimately win as a faster, more reliable, and more sustainable mode of transportation for goods.

This settlement received its name for the large number of German immigrants coming to the area in the 1830s. Jacob Snyder and his family were the first, followed by the Metzes, Richters, Stangs, Hogans, and Grusendorfs, among others.

Mills became prevalent throughout the county once the tobacco-ruined soil was rejuvenated and grains became the predominant farming product. Clopper Mill was built in 1833 by Francis Cassatt Clopper, who also designed the first Rockville courthouse, and stood until a fire destroyed it in 1947.

By 1835, Montgomery County had outgrown the first courthouse and petitioned the General Assembly for approval to construct a new courthouse. The petition was granted to erect a courthouse on public grounds in Rockville to include all offices necessary to conduct the duties of and secure the records/public documents of Montgomery County. The new courthouse, a two-story brick building with one-story wings, opened in 1840.

The spring was discovered by Francis Preston Blair and was so named because mica sand particles made the water sparkle. He purchased one thousand acres of land that he named Silver Spring and built a summer home on it for his family. A boundary marker between Montgomery County and the District of Columbia stands on the property owned by Blair.

The Montgomery County Agricultural Society was organized in 1846 to promote improvements in farming and soon began holding annual fairs. The first fair held at the Rockville Fairgrounds, now the site of Richard Montgomery High School, was in 1849. The fairgrounds later included a racetrack and grandstand, built in the early 1900s for horse and bicycle racing. The first automobile race was held in 1923. The Rockville Fair continued until 1932 when the Society ran into financial difficulty during the Great Depression, and the land was sold to the School Board for construction of a new high school building.

In 1849, Josiah Henson published his first memoirs of his time enslaved on the Isaac Riley plantation near Bethesda. Harriet Beecher Stowe used elements from his life story as inspiration for events and characters in her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852, fueling the abolitionist movement nationwide.

Though many newspapers were published during this time, the Sentinel is the paper that stood the test of time, remaining in publication until 2019. It was founded by Matthew Fields, an outspoken Confederate sympathizer. After his death in 1871, his wife, Rebecca Fields, and their children owned and published the paper for the next 60 years until they sold the business in 1932.

Rockville was governed by three commissioners until 1888, when the first Mayor and Council were elected.

The Maryland General Assembly passed legislation to create a countywide school system (for White children) with William H. Farquhar as superintendent, but limited funding meant schools remained few and far between for many years.

The Montgomery County Jail in Rockville, built in 1801, burned to the ground in 1861. A new stone jail building was erected on the same site, which was used for the next 70 years.

By referendum and by a razor-thin margin, Marylanders voted to end slavery in the state after more than 200 years. Soldiers voting in the field in October 1864 ensured passage of the new Maryland State Constitution, which outlawed slavery effective November 1. Seventy-three percent of Montgomery County voters did not approve.

Confederate troops under General Jubal Early skirmished with Union troops near Rockville en route to an unsuccessful attack on Fort Stevens in Washington. Union troops were commanded by Major General Frank Wheaton, who led troops stationed at the fort to successfully repel Early’s troops. In recognition of exceptional service, in 1869 the community of Leesborough/Leesboro was renamed Wheaton in the General’s honor.

A Freedman’s Bureau office opened in Rockville to assist formerly enslaved people. It was short-lived, closing in 1867.

Brothers John and Joseph Poole of Anne Arundel County bought 160 acres of land in 1760 in what would eventually become Poolesville. They established the first post office and set up stores and farms.

The first public schools for the education of Black children were established by state law.

The B&O Railroad’s Metropolitan Branch provided transportation to Washington, D.C. from Montgomery County. The opening of the railroad led to the development of suburban communities such as Chevy Chase, Kensington, Takoma Park and Garrett Park. It also allowed many of the grain farms in the county to transition to dairy operations, since products could be sent quickly to markets in the District without spoiling.

Originally settled in 1765 as “Log Town,” it was later called Forest Oak after a large tree that dominated the landscape, situated on the property of the Gaither family who were large landowners in the area. The Forest Oak cemetery, chapel, and hotel were all named for the stately landmark, but the town was finally incorporated as Gaithersburg in 1878, in homage to the founding family.

George Peck was the first of the three known men lynched in Montgomery County, Maryland in the 19th century. Born into slavery, Peck lived in the Poolesville/Beallsville area his entire life. In January 1880, the 22-year-old Peck was accused of attempted assault on a white girl and arrested by the constable. Before he could be transported to Rockville for any legal proceedings, a crowd of local men seized him in the night and hanged him from a tree in downtown Poolesville. No one was ever held accountable for his murder.

Less than six months later, John Dorsey (also known as John Diggs) a Black man in his early twenties, was living and working in Darnestown, as servant to a middle-aged couple: James and Linnie Tschiffely. On the morning of July 25, 1880, Linnie Tschiffely accused John Diggs-Dorsey of physically assaulting her the night before. Mr. Diggs-Dorsey was apprehended and placed in the county jail in Rockville. That night, a lynch mob dragged Diggs-Dorsey from his cell, marched him to a place one mile outside town on Route 28 and hanged him from the limb of a tree . The local jury of inquest as well as the grand jury convened four months later both returned a verdict of death by “violence committed by parties unknown.”

The first commercial bank in the county opened in Rockville, at the corner of Commerce Lane and Perry Street, across from the courthouse. In 1905, a new building was constructed a block away, designed by E. Francis Baldwin, the same architect who designed Rockville’s train station. The building was razed for urban renewal in 1968.

The first streetcar ran from Tenleytown to Bethesda Park (later extended to Rockville). It was later joined by other lines, including ones servicing Glen Echo Park and Great Falls.

The “Red Brick Courthouse,” as it is known today, was built to replace the former courthouse on what was then the southeast end of Rockville.

The National Chautauqua of Glen Echo and the Glen Echo Railroad opened in June 1891 on 80 acres purchased originally for a “Glen Echo-on-the-Potomac” residential and resort development. Clara Barton lived in a house on the property which later served as the headquarters of the American Red Cross, between 1897 and 1904. Barton also served as president of the Women’s Executive Committee of the Chautauqua assembly, an effort that soon folded due to economic problems and fear of malaria.

Montgomery County’s first high school for White children opened in Rockville for grades 8-11. It would later become Richard Montgomery High School.

Originally developed in 1887 as Ye Forest Inne, an ultimately unsuccessful resort hotel, the site opened as the National Park Seminary for women in 1894, with the belief that art and culture should be integral to the school’s curriculum. In addition to a wide variety of music, drama, elocution, and art classes, the students were surrounded with fanciful architecture, landscaping, sculpture, and decorative arts to create a uniquely beautiful educational environment. After the school had operated for nearly 50 years, the U.S. Army claimed the property at the outbreak of WWII for use as a convalescent center for soldiers. The property served as an annex to the Walter Reed Army Hospital and was used through the Vietnam War, then largely abandoned by the 1970s. To prevent demolition and redevelopment of the land by the Army, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, but the neglect of the buildings and grounds continued. A grass-roots organization called Save Our Seminary (SOS) formed in 1989 to garner support for preservation and to insist the historic buildings be turned over to a new owner. In 2001 the Army finally agreed to divest itself of the historic district, and SOS partnered with a developer to save all of the historic buildings and to transform the Seminary into a unique residential community of apartments, condominiums, and single-family homes.

The very first telephone lines installed in the county were attributed to James P. Stabler of Sandy Spring, who used them as early as 1878 for house-to-house communication with his family members. Expiration of Bell Telephone’s patent in 1894 allowed formation of local, independent telephone operations, including the earliest ones organized in Sandy Spring and Gaithersburg. Stabler’s lines expanded to become the Enterprise Telephone Company. Gaithersburg’s telephone network, initiated by B & O Stationmaster A.F. Meem, was called the Montgomery County Telephone Company, which began with five lines and cost residential customers $10 a year for service. In 1896, a twenty-line switchboard was installed in the home of Lillian Hogan to run it. By the turn of the century, telephone service had been extended to Rockville, Silver Spring, and Kensington. In 1906, C & P Telephone purchased all of Montgomery County’s networks, connecting the county with 24 hour service. The switchboard continued to operate out of the Hogan home in Gaithersburg until 1937.

Sidney Randolph, a native of Georgia in his mid-twenties, was lynched in Rockville, Maryland on July 4, 1896, by an officially unidentified group of White men from Montgomery County. He was initially arrested as a suspect in the case of an attack on the Buxton family of Gaithersburg in May of that same year, and the subsequent death of the youngest child, Sadie Buxton. Though professional detectives were brought in from both Washington and Baltimore to investigate the case, local residents of Gaithersburg took it upon themselves to find and/or create circumstantial evidence implicating Sidney Randolph, a stranger to the area who had no motive and consistently maintained his innocence. Removed to the jail in Baltimore to avoid an immediate lynching, Randolph survived repeated interrogations while imprisoned from May 25 until July 4, when a masked mob of White men dragged him from his cell in the Rockville jail, brutally beat him, and hanged him from a tree just outside of town along Route 355. His murderers were never identified or brought to justice for this crime.

By the time of its incorporation in 1898, Garrett Park was a busy small town with a population of over a hundred and containing more than 30 buildings in the Victorian style. Life centered around the train station, opened in 1893 and connecting residents with an easy commute to work in Washington, D.C.  Today, Garrett Park is designated as an official arboretum and is the only town in Montgomery County registered as a historic district.

This was one of six global observatories established as part of the International Polar Motion Service in order to measure variations in latitude caused by the Earth’s wobble. The Gaithersburg observatory was in use until 1982, and became a National Historic Landmark in 1989. One of the survey monuments on the grounds of the observatory is operated by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and is still used to test the Global Positioning Systems (GPS).

The mill was located on the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River. In a letter to his son Ted following a visit with his wife, Edith, Roosevelt wrote “Dear Ted, Mother and I had a most lovely ride the other day, way up beyond Sligo Creek to what is called North-west Branch, at Burnt Mills, where is a beautiful gorge, deep and narrow, with great boulders and even cliffs. Excepting Great Falls, it is the most beautiful place around here. Mother scrambled among the cliffs in her riding habit, very pretty and most interesting. The roads were good and some of the scenery really beautiful. We were gone four hours, half an hour being occupied with the scrambling in the gorge.” –White House, June 21, 1904.

Leaders of the Adventist movement opened the Washington Sanitarium in 1907, which later became Washington Adventist Hospital.

Following the closure of the National Chautauqua at Glen Echo in 1897, vaudeville shows and other entertainment events took place on the site. Then Glen Echo Park opened in 1911 under the ownership of the Washington Railway and Electric Company. The amusement park was restricted to White patrons only until 1961 when protests by Howard University students and members of the local Bannockburn community led to the park’s desegregation. It closed in 1968 and later came under the direction of the National Park Service after a grassroots effort to save the iconic carousel.

Twenty-eight cases of typhoid led to improvements in Rockville’s water distribution system.

The first 40 men from Montgomery County reported for duty in September.

The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, a bi-county organization, was established to provide water and sewer service to Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.

Though many iterations of organized fire-fighting sporadically came and went in communities throughout the county in the late-19th and early-20th century, Silver Spring was the first to incorporate their department in 1918 and purchase a motor-driven fire engine. Through local community fundraising, the Silver Spring company was not only able to purchase a chemical engine (used until the development of water main systems in the early 1920s provided easy access to water), but also secured the first National Guard Armory building in Silver Spring (built in 1914) as their headquarters. 

Other early-formed volunteer fire departments included Takoma Park in 1919, Rockville in 1921, Sandy Spring in 1924, and Kensington in 1925. 

Established by Dr. Jacob Wheeler Bird, Montgomery General was the first acute care hospital in Montgomery County, admitting its first five patients ahead of completion in 1920 during a blizzard and a flu outbreak. Black patients were admitted, but segregated to treatment in the facility’s basement.

Lee began a rapid ascent in Maryland politics, and by extension became the leading figure in county governance over the next several decades. First as Comptroller, then Secretary of State and finally Speaker of the House of Delegates (as well as the long-time county Democratic party leader), Lee dominated county political affairs until home rule transferred power wielded in Annapolis to local elected officials.

Rockville Elementary School was the first of 17 Rosenwald schools for Black children that were built throughout Montgomery County the 1920s. The initiative began as a cooperative venture in 1912 between Booker T. Washington and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Co. Most of the county’s Rosenwald schools were built on designs produced by the Tuskegee Institute.

Following the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment which granted women the right to vote, the American Woman Suffrage Association was reorganized as the League of Women Voters. The Montgomery County chapter was established the following year as a non-partisan organization that would educate and encourage women to participate effectively in politics, and would endorse legislation to improve the quality of life for all citizens within their communities.

In 1921 fifty men gathered at the office of the Potomac Electric Power Company to form the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department. Previous to this newly formed department in Rockville, there had been an all-Black fire department in operation since 1895, led by chief George W. Meads until his death in 1919.

The first police department consisted of a chief and five motorcycle patrolmen, pictured below:  Earl Burdine, Lawrence Clagett, Guy Jones, Chief Charles Cooley (standing), Leroy Rodgers, and Oscar T. Gaither. 

Established in 1913 as the Washington Suburban Club by members of the District of Columbia’s Jewish community in a time when Jews were barred from membership in area social clubs, the members moved to a new location at Woodmont Circle, off the Rockville Pike in Bethesda. In 1930, the club was officially renamed Woodmont Country Club after its new location. It would move again to its present location in Rockville 1950, due to expansion of the neighboring National Institutes of Health.

The bi-county agency known as “M-NCPPC” was authorized by the Maryland General Assembly to plan and guide orderly growth and development in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, modeled after the National Capital Planning Commission established by Congress in Washington, D.C. in 1924.

Located on N. Washington St. in Rockville, this Rosenwald school was known as “Rockville Colored High School.” The school was moved to a reconstructed building in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in 1935 and renamed Lincoln High School.

Engle was the first woman from Montgomery County to be elected to the Maryland General Assembly, serving as a Delegate in the lower house.

Land previously leased to the Congressional School of Aeronautics was sold and became Congressional Airport. The airport closed in 1958 to make way for Congressional Plaza Shopping Center.

The “Grey Courthouse,” as it is known today, was built adjacent to the 1891 court building, featuring a new courtroom, offices, and a jail on the fourth floor. The courtroom was host to nationally significant trials, the most noteworthy of which was Gibbs v. Broome, et al. in 1937, which featured lead attorney Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP (who later served as a Supreme Court justice) and led to equal pay for Black schoolteachers. Today, the building is designated as part of the Montgomery County Courthouse Historic District and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the Maryland Historical Trust.

This co-op was formed at the height of the Great Depression to enable farm women to sell their produce. It is still in operation today in the same location on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda.

A landmark case leading up to Brown v. Board of Education (1954), this case for equal salaries for teachers of both races was brought by William B. Gibbs, Jr., teacher and acting principal of Rockville Colored Elementary School, against Superintendent of Schools Edwin Broome and the School Board. Gibbs was represented by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP. The case was settled out of court in Gibbs’s favor, but he was fired from his position with the schools.

Montgomery County’s branch of the NAACP, originally formed in 1922 but defunct by 1924, was re-activated in the wake of the Gibbs v. Broome lawsuit. William B. Gibbs, Jr., the plaintiff in the lawsuit, was elected the first president. In 1957, Montgomery County’s chapter surveyed eating establishments to determine which refused service to Black patrons. At that time there was no law that prohibited racial discrimination by restaurants or other businesses. The NAACP initiated boycotts and picketing of some restaurants that led in part to the creation in 1960 of the Human Relations Commission (now known as the Office of Human Rights).

When Luke and Helen Wilson offered their 45-acre estate in Bethesda to the U.S. government, the National Institute of Health was moved there, one of the first of many federal facilities that would be located in the county and significantly impact its development. NIH would be expanded many times with numerous additional research endeavors, gaining the name it is known by today, National Institutes of Health.

This was the first suburban shopping center opened in Montgomery County. In 1947, the department store chain Hecht’s opened its first suburban location near this shopping center, centering Silver Spring as a retail hub for both urban and suburban shoppers in the post-war era. Wheaton Plaza, the county’s first mall, opened in 1960.

During the Great Depression agricultural prices dropped and farmers were among the hardest hit by the Depression. A significant number of African Americans, many of whom were farm workers, left the county—an exodus prompted both by the loss of farmland to encroaching suburbanization and the lack of available housing due to increasing racial restrictions in suburban neighborhoods. Black residents, who made up about one-third of the county’s population before the Civil War, comprised only four percent of the population by 1960.

The county’s historical society was organized by Montgomery County native Lilly Stone as a branch of the Maryland Historical Society.

Montgomery County’s first school for post-high school education initially offered night classes at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Its first dedicated building (pictured below) stood on the grounds of the high school and was pieced together from two existing military surplus units moved from Fort Washington. It housed offices, biology and chemistry laboratories, a student lounge, and a bookstore. Today, Montgomery College offers liberal arts education to a diverse student population, operating from three campuses in Takoma Park, Rockville, and Germantown.

Ohr Kodesh Congregation, formerly known as the Montgomery County Jewish Center, was established in Chevy Chase. In 1965, the only Jewish day school in Montgomery County began meeting in the basement of the Center, later called the Solomon Schechter School. The school moved to its current facility on E. Jefferson Avenue and Montrose Road in 1977 and in 1980 was renamed the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, for his “extraordinary contribution in supporting the Jewish Day School and making it a reality.”

Montgomery County voters approved a home rule charter with a Council-Manager government, the first county in Maryland to do so. The charter significantly increased local officials’ decision-making powers that heretofore largely lay in Annapolis. A major impetus for the new charter had come in 1941 with the release of a detailed study by the Brookings Institution of Washington, D.C., which concluded the county had “outgrown its form of government,” consisting at the time of a board of commissioners with relatively few powers.

Montgomery County voters elected six men and a woman to fill the first County Council. Dorothy S. Himstead, a leader in the charter campaign, would be followed on the Council the next year by two other women, Stella B. Werner, also a charter advocate, who would later become the Council’s first female president, and Kathryn J. Lawlor, who in 1955 would become the first woman Circuit Court judge.

After the Agricultural Society folded in the 1930s, no annual county fair was held for many years. Then in 1945, 4-H agricultural leaders began gathering informally to hold livestock shows. A few years later, the group organized the Montgomery County Cooperative Agriculture Center, Inc., which still hosts a county fair every summer on grounds originally purchased from Herman Rabbitt in Gaithersburg.

On May 31, the County Council passed the County Library Law of 1950, which created a Department of Public Libraries administered by a professional librarian and advised by a Library Board, incorporating seven independent community libraries into a unified system. Previously-established independent libraries in Bethesda and Rockville joined several years later. Takoma Park’s library is still independent. The first library director, George B. Moreland, assumed office in 1951.

With an influx of federal workers during the New Deal and World War II bolstering Montgomery County’s population—and especially the baby boom after soldiers returned home—the county’s population skyrocketed. The number of residents doubled between 1940 and 1950 and would double again by 1960. Large new developments of modest homes sprang up, most notably Twinbrook and Wheaton Village. An average of 4.5 schools would be built every year in the decade of 1950s; seven per year in the 1960s.

Montgomery County was the first in Maryland to act on the Supreme Court’s order to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.” A limited number of elementary schools were integrated in the fall of 1955, with Black students residing downcounty, who were still attending substandard wood-frame schools built decades earlier, entering formerly all-white schools. The process, expanding gradually by area and grade level, was considered complete by 1961,when all the all-Black schools had been closed.

The highway connected Washington, D.C. with Frederick County, passing through Montgomery County and becoming a major artery. It was widened numerous times over the following decades and later became designated as Interstate-270.

Rockville was one of the first communities in Maryland to use federal funds as part of the Federal Urban Renewal Program. The plan resulted in the demolition of most of the county seat’s business district, replaced with a shopping mall that was ultimately unsuccessful.

Howard University students and members of the local Bannockburn community, sometimes joined by national civil rights figures, staged summer-long picketing of Glen Echo Park for its refusal to admit Black patrons. The protest generated counter-demonstrations by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Glen Echo owners opened the park to all the following year, but decline in overall business led to its closure several years later.

The airpark opened in Gaithersburg after Congressional Airport closed in 1957.

Built on the former site of the Montgomery County Poor Farm near Rockville, this replaced the fourth-floor jail cells in the Grey Courthouse.

The opening of Young Israel Shomrai Emunah Synagogue attracted many Jewish families to Kemp Mill. By 2005, 50% of its residents were Orthodox Jews, and it continues to be a center of the region’s Orthodox community

In the summer of 1962, Eunice Kennedy Shriver hosted a camp for children with intellectual disabilities at her home, Timberlawn, in Rockville. She and her husband Sargent Shriver had moved to the large estate when he was appointed by her brother, President John F. Kennedy, as director of the Peace Corps. Shriver continued to host annual summer camps, and her home later served as offices for the organization that eventually created the Special Olympics. Timberlawn was officially designated in Montgomery County’s Master Plan for Historic Preservation in 2025.

On January 16, Montgomery County passed a law prohibiting racial and religious discrimination in places of public accommodation. It was the first county in Maryland to prohibit discrimination in public places, and two years ahead of the federal government’s Civil Rights Act, which made such discrimination illegal nationwide. An attempt to repeal the law in 1963, led primarily by newly elected county councilman John Hiser, was unsuccessful.

First known as the circumferential highway and expected to be used mainly by long-distance motorists bypassing the nation’s capital, the Beltway became a major—and often congested—element of the county’s network of roadways.

The first comprehensive plan to deal with Montgomery County’s rapid development was referred to as the “wedges and corridors” general plan because it channeled growth into development “corridors” along roadways while seeking to preserve “wedges” of open space, farmland, and lower density residential uses.

The formation of Scotland dates to 1880, with a land purchase by William Dove and subsequent settlement by African American farm workers. By the 1960s, taxpaying Scotland residents still lacked paved roads or public water and sewage systems. In 1965, Geneva Mason and other residents formed Save Our Scotland (SOS), a grass-roots organization dedicated to improving living conditions. Working closely with Joyce Siegel and other White partners, government grants were acquired to redevelop the community with townhomes and public utilities. The first units were ready by spring of 1969.

After decades of discrimination prevented Black and other non-white residents from purchasing homes in many suburban neighborhoods, the County Council passed an open housing law prohibiting developers and real estate agents from excluding buyers based on race or nationality. Over the next thirty years, the demographic changes set in motion by the fair housing movement reshaped Montgomery County, which is one of the most racially and culturally diverse places in the country.

The new charter adopted by voters changed the Council-Manager government to a County Executive-Council system with two branches: an executive branch led by a County Executive, and a legislative branch with a seven-member Council.

James P. Gleason is elected the first County Executive.

Located on Briggs Chaney Road in Silver Spring, the society was originally founded primarily by Muslims from Guyana and Trinidad, but today includes Muslims from geographic areas throughout the world. It was followed by the establishment of the Muslim Community Center in 1976.

The county executives laid a boundary marker to resolve a dispute from a 1748 ruling when Frederick County (then containing the future Montgomery County) was carved out of a larger Prince George’s County.

Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation was established to preserve the architectural heritage of Rockville, which was under increasing threat during the period of Urban Renewal begun in the 1960s and continuing into the 1970s.

Ride-On was the first county-run bus service in the Washington area, originally providing service in Takoma Park and Silver Spring.

The 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and also the founding of Montgomery County the same year sparked numerous patriotic celebrations, commemorations, activities, and a general public interest in history and genealogy. Bicentennial activities were planned and promoted around the county for years leading up to the anniversary year.

In February 1978, the first Metrorail station in Montgomery County opened in Silver Spring. The final station, Glenmont, opened in 1998.

The Agricultural Reserve is a nationally acclaimed land-use plan, established in response to the rapid disappearance of Montgomery County’s farmland throughout the 20th century. Initiated by former Planning Director Richard Tustian and former Planning Board Chair Royce Hanson, and supported by the County Council, the program was designed to prevent sprawl, protect farmland, and manage growth. One-third of the county, or 93,000 acres, falls under this specially-designated area. Using legislative tools including the Rural Density Transfer Zone and the Building Lot Termination Program, rural landowners can retain larger holdings of property and farming can remain economically viable in an ever-increasing competitive market. Counties around the country, in states from California to Connecticut, have followed the Agricultural Reserve model and adopted its development policies to preserve farmland and limit development.

In a landmark victory for local historic preservation, the 1873 train station building and a car garage were both moved 30 feet south for track expansion allowing Metro service to Rockville. The buildings still stand near the railroad tracks just south of the Metro station and serve as law offices today.

This building became the fifth courthouse for Montgomery County.

Odessa M. Shannon was elected to the Montgomery County Board of Education in 1982. Her campaign marked the first election of an African American woman to a policy-making political position in Montgomery County. She had previously attained one of the highest non-political positions in the Senior Executive Service as National Program Director for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After retiring from the federal government, Shannon was selected as Special Assistant to the County Executive of Montgomery County, Maryland, Charles Gilchrist, the first woman to hold this position. Later, she was Deputy Director of the Department of Family Resources. From 1995 -2008, she was the Executive Director of the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission (previously the Human Relations Commission). 

The last two stations on the west side of the Red Line were added in 1984.

Bill #65-83 was introduced in 1983 to add sexual orientation to Montgomery County’s human relations code. Despite opposition, Montgomery County Executive Charles Gilchrist signed Bill #65-83 in February 1984. Opponents mobilized to schedule a referendum vote on the law in the fall to prevent the bill from going into effect, which failed.

The first Cambodian Buddhist Temple in the U.S. was established in Maryland in 1976 to conserve Cambodian Buddhist religion and culture. Originally headquartered in Oxon Hill and then New Carrolton, its main temple, Vatt Buddhikarama, was moved to Silver Spring in 1986. As of 2020, there were more than fifteen Buddhist temples in Montgomery County.

ACT NOW (AIDS Coalition to Network, Organize and Win), a coalition of ACT UP members, led “Seize Control of the FDA,” a protest at the Food and Drug Administration’s headquarters in Rockville. The approximately 1,500 activists demanded that the FDA speed up its research, development and approval of drugs for AIDS. A similar protest with similar goals was staged at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda two years later, called “Storm the NIH.”

Two seats were added for a total of nine elected councilmembers. The Twelfth Council was comprised of Isiah Leggett, Bruce Adams, Marilyn J. Praisner, William E. Hanna, Jr., Derick Berlage, Nancy Dacek, Gail Ewing, Betty Ann Krahnke, and Michael L. Subin

Montgomery County’s first Pride celebration was held June 26 at Parklawn Park in Rockville and attended by more than 200 people. After taking place in several different venues for its first few years, Montgomery Pride was moved to Lake Needwood Park in 1996, and to the campus of Montgomery College in 1999.

The City of Takoma Park, formerly split by the Montgomery/Prince George’s county line, is incorporated into Montgomery County. Takoma Park, Maryland was first developed in 1883. An early resident was Benjamin Y. Morrison, a horticulturalist and the first director of the National Arboretum.

In the 1990s the Montgomery County Council approved an urban renewal plan for downtown Silver Spring following years of decline. Development of the Silver Triangle Urban Renewal Area included the City Place indoor shopping center and an “American Dream” mall modeled after Minnesota’s Mall of America. The plan was opposed by civic groups and historic preservation organizations and was revised to include maintaining Silver Spring’s racially diverse neighborhoods with African American, Ethiopian, Caribbean and other cultural businesses. The new plan, signed in 1998 by County Executive Doug Duncan, included maintaining the Art Deco facade of the Silver Spring Shopping Center and restoring the historic Silver Theater, which opened as the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in 2003. Also in 2003, Discovery Corporation built its world headquarters in the downtown Silver Spring, bringing much-needed job opportunities to the area.

The new emblem incorporated the coat of arms, which was approved in 1976.

The All-America Community award, given by the National Civic League, recognizes communities that leverage civic engagement, collaboration, inclusiveness and innovation to successfully address local issues.

The Charles W. Gilchrist Center for Cultural Diversity was established to serve the growing immigrant population, offering free classes, referrals to support services, citizenship application assistance, and more.

Eleven Montgomery County residents were killed when a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon during the September 11 terrorist attacks. In 2003 the City of Rockville unveiled the “Memorial to the Events of 9/11/01,” featuring eleven benches bearing inscriptions reflecting the character of each person.

In the fall of 2002, a pair of snipers terrorized the Washington area by shooting and killing innocent citizens apparently at random. The first victim was killed on October 2, 2002, followed by nine more individuals murdered over the next several weeks until the perpetrators were captured. Six of the victims were residents of Montgomery County. In 2004 a Reflection Terrace was dedicated at Brookside Gardens as a memorial to the victims.

The county-wide celebration was created by Heritage Tourism Alliance of Montgomery County (Heritage Montgomery) to raise the profile of the county’s cultural and historical resources.

Isiah (Ike) Leggett served three consecutive terms as Montgomery County Executive (2006-2018). Prior to that, Leggett was the first African American to be elected to the County Council, serving four terms as an At-Large Member (1986 – 2002). He also served as the Council’s President three times (1991, 1998, 1999) and as its Vice-President three times (1990, 1997 and 2002). As a Council Member he also chaired the Council’s Transportation and Environment Committee and served on the Education Committee. He has received more than 200 honors and awards from a variety of organizations, and the County Executive Building was christened in his honor in 2025.

Valerie Ervin was the first Black woman to win a seat on the council in 2006. She was elected as president of the council starting in 2011, making her the first Black woman to hold that position as well. Ervin had started her career as a union organizer, she was then elected to the Montgomery County Board of Education in 2004. She resigned from the council in 2014 after nearly a decade of elected public service. 

Nancy Navarro, born in Caracas Venezuela, was the first Latina county council member elected in Montgomery County, Maryland. She served on the county council from 2009 to 2022, representing District 4, the largest and most diverse district in the county, and also served two terms as the council president in 2012 and 2018.

The first segment of the Intercounty Connector (ICC) opened in 2011. Originally proposed in the 1950s by the National Capital Planning Commission as a northern highway around the Capital Beltway, the plan was eventually modified to be a route to connect Route 1 in the east to Route 270 in the west.

The State of Maryland officially recognized the Piscataway Indian Nation and the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, the indigenous people with which Montgomery County’s land is most closely associated. Piscataway means “place where the waters blend.”

A monument to Montgomery County’s Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War, erected in 1913 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was removed from display on the grounds of the Red Brick Courthouse and reinstalled at White’s Ferry in 2017 at the behest of County Executive Isiah Leggett and others in county government.  During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the statue was toppled by protesters and removed to storage by the owners of White’s Ferry, who also removed a sign on the ferry bearing the name of Confederate General Jubal A. Early.

The project was first approved by the Montgomery County planning board in 1990 as a 16-mile, 21-station light rail system connecting Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. It was designed to alleviate traffic on the Capital Beltway by offering an alternative route for commuters in the close-in DC suburbs. Originally expected to be completed in 2022, it faced delays due to cost overruns, construction issues and lawsuits by property owners and environmental groups. As of 2025 it was expected to be completed in 2027.

In June, 2019 a Pride flag was raised for the first time on county property in Rockville’s Veterans Memorial Plaza in front of the County Executive Office Building in celebration of Pride month.

According to recent census data, 1/3 of Montgomery County’s residents were born in another country and nearly 40% speak another language besides English. As of 2022, four of Montgomery County’s cities made the top-ten list of most diverse places in the United States: Germantown, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville.

Of the 18,466 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the State of Maryland, 2,710 were in Montgomery County.

This Master Plan for Montgomery County was approved and adopted in October 2022. The first General Plan was adopted in 1964 with amendments in 1969 and 1993. Thrive Montgomery 2050 revised earlier county development in light of recent shifts for land use, transportation, and public infrastructure.

The council had been expanded in 1990 from the original seven-member council to nine members. In 2022 it expanded again to eleven members, reflecting redistricting and population growth. This was also the first elected council in which the majority of the members were women.

Kristin Mink was elected to represent District 5 on the Montgomery County Council in 2022. A first generation Chinese-American born and raised in Montgomery County, she was the first Asian American to serve on the council. Prior to her election, Kristin worked as a teacher in Montgomery County Public Schools and most recently as the Senior Legislative Organizer at the Center for Popular Democracy, a nationwide nonprofit fighting for justice at the local, state, and federal levels.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church that was established in 1905 in the historically Black community of Scotland dedicated its church building in 1924. The building fell into disrepair over many decades as a result of poorly planned drainage systems caused by the surrounding housing developments and the rerouting of Seven Locks Road. Extensive renovations on the church were accomplished with support from local and state leaders through the 2nd Century Project.