Saturday October 1
Say hello to us at our table celebrating the 90th birthday of the Bethesda Farm Women's Cooperative Market
Sunday October 16 @ 3:00 pm
Join the Historic Edgemoor Walking Tour With Fred Berner
Enjoy a walk around the historic Edgemoor neighborhood of Bethesda with Fred Berner, author of “Old Edgemoor – The Heart of Bethesda.”
This new tour – fourth in a series of five Edgemoor tours — features century-old Edgemoor homes, each with its own architecture and history, as well as other historic sites. We will begin at “The Tudor Place House,” built in 1916 as Edgemoor’s third “Show House.” For the past 60 years, it has served as “The Manor House” of the Sidwell Friends Lower School.
The second home on the tour is listed as a historic property by Maryland’s Historical Trust. Built in 1923, this Italian Renaissance residence has a hipped slate roof, jettied eaves, and rusticated voussoirs – hallmarks of the fashionable architecture of the early 20th century. For 60 years, this was the home of James Fieser, chief of Red Cross disaster relief in the Great Depression, and his family.
Next we will visit “Four Winds,” a Second Empire mansion also built in 1923. Edgemoor icons Harrison and Marjorie Hathaway and their three daughters lived there for 45 years. This 3-story house features a Mansard roof with multiple chimneys and dormers, projecting gable wings, and a grand entrance.
Our tour will then move to the site of Bethesda’s first public library, the site of the Bethesda School, built in 1903, and “The Church That Named Bethesda” – all demonstrating why “Old Edgemoor” was indeed “The Heart of Bethesda.”
The tour will begin promptly at 3:00 p.m. at 7400 Beverly Road in Bethesda. This will be an entirely outdoor event, but we hope that all who attend will be fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
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
Wednesday October 12
7:30 pm
Bethesda Historical Society Monthly Meeting
Contact us for more information
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.
