Thank you Fred Berner for another delightful tour of the historic Edgemoor neighborhood!
Fred showed us Edgemoor’s third “Show House,” built in 1916 and for the past 60 years “The Manor House” of the Sidwell Friends Lower School. Next, we visited the 1923 Italian Renaissance home for 60 years of James Fieser, chief of Red Cross disaster relief in the Great Depression. Then we saw the “Four Winds,” a Second Empire mansion also built in 1923 where Edgemoor icons Harrison and Marjorie Hathaway and their three daughters lived for 45 years. And finally, we visited the site of Bethesda’s first public library, the site of the Bethesda School, built in 1903, and “The Church That Named Bethesda.”
Fred Berner is author of “Old Edgemoor – The Heart of Bethesda.”
Dairy Industry in the Bethesda Area in the First Half of the 20th Century with Richard Rowe
Dairy farms and creameries in the Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Silver Spring area were pretty much gone by the 1940s. The early Bethesda area dairy farms and creameries are identified and located on a map and some are discussed in detail.
This presentation was developed in cooperation with the Bethesda Historical Society to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Bethesda.
An 80-minute video from Montgomery History April 27, 2022.
History of Bethesda Schools with Ralph Buglass
This richly-illustrated talk, in partnership with the Bethesda Historical Society, details the ways that Bethesda schools set the pace for education in Montgomery County public schools beginning in the early 1900s.
A 1-hour video from October 5, 2021.
Award to Bethesda's Bill Offutt
Congratulations to Bethesda historian and lifelong resident Bill Offutt who was presented Montgomery Preservation’s Lifetime Achievement Award this year.
An 8-minute video.
Upcoming Events
Bethesda Historical Society Monthly Meeting
Next meeting in December
Date TBA
Following the collision of two Navy Hellcat planes over downtown Bethesda in 1945, one pilot’s parachute was caught in a big oak tree across from Gifford’s Ice Cream, while his plane miraculously crashed into the only vacant lot in Bethesda.
Bethesda is featured in several popular movies that include Dave (1993), Shattered Glass (2003) and The Bourne Legacy (2012).
Bethesda Historical Society.
The Edgemoor Club in Bethesda reached acclaim in the late 1950s when Pauline Betz Addie—ranked No. 1 in the world in 1946 and winner of six Grand Slam tennis titles, including Wimbledon, and Forest Hills four times—became the club pro.
In 1928, the Newcomb Club of Bethesda started a public campaign to put a stop to “spooning” by lovers parked on the roadside, “even in front of their own house.”
In the late 1920s, the price of gas at Eastham's Esso Station, located at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Leland Street for 83 years, was 20 cents per gallon as car owners spent lazy Saturdays cruising in their Ford Model T’s and Roadsters.
