Historic Takoma, Inc.
Preserving the Heritage of Takoma ParkMD & TakomaDC Celebrating 25 Years of Service to the Community 19792004. |
Historic Significance of Takoma Park
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Reprinted with permission of the Takoma Voice, printed May 1999. The Wilderness That Became TakomaBy Elizabeth Marple Bentley In 1883, the land B.F. Gilbert
enthusiastically purchased for his future Takoma was somewhat hilly, rough
and forested, and interspersed frequently with springs. The same hills
and irregularities in the land also discouraged extensive agrarian use.
Urbanization might not have appeared a likely land use prospect.
This description of the area, as Gilbert first knew it, appeared in
the Washington Star on June 15, 1889:
It was as wild looking a region as ever stopped the progress of agriculture
or served as a home for the animals and birds which flee before the
approach of civilization. To penetrate the tough underbrush was in many
places only for squirrels.
It was a wilderness, the only entrance to which was either by following
the picturesque Sligo in its enchanting deviousness, or by swinging
the axe or manipulating the grub-hoe."
Essentially, the soon-to-be Takoma was a backwater of occasional farms
bypassed by most roads. Travelers would sometimes pass through on a route
extending north, along the bow of General S. S. Carroll's property, over
Sligo Creek or Run on a low, wood-framed bridge, and then continue north
toward Sandy Spring. Today a small stretch of the old Sandy Spring Road
lies at the south end of Maple Avenue.
For some distance, a well-known path hugged Sligo Creek [see Takoma
Voice, July 1998], while Piney Branch Road extended north from Seventh
Street Pike (today's Georgia Avenue) to meet East Branch Blair Road, and
stopped.
The only farmhouse remaining along the stretch of road that went from
the Maryland line directly through the future Takoma is the Davis-Warner
Inn at 8114 Carroll Avenue. Recently renovated, the house and farm predate
Takoma Park; the house was probably constructed around 1855.
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