Featured Photo: Popes Creek Post Office, 1910
Popes Creek Post Office on the Potomac River. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1910
It’s hard to imagine a world without cars, buses, and trucks. But put yourself back in the early 20th century. Before the invention of trains and automobiles, animal power was the main form of travel. Horses, donkeys, and oxen pulled wagons, coaches, and buggies. Early settlers often used oxen to pull their big wagons. Oxen were slower than horses, but they could pull four times as much weight.
In this circa 1910 photograph taken by Lewis Reed, two men pose with an ox-drawn wagon in front of the little Popes Creek Post Office on the Potomac River. Two elegantly dressed women with hats stand outside on the porch. Note the two-person horse buggy on the right. The Potomac River is visible in the background. The Popes Creek Post Office probably served as a social gathering place for the community.
A bit of history: Popes Creek is an unincorporated community in Charles County, Maryland. It is located on the shore of a north-south section of the Potomac River north of and in sight of the Harry Nice Memorial Bridge. To the north is Port Tobacco Village, Maryland, and to the southeast the Cobb Island peninsula. Pope’s Creek has a long and varied history. Near here, John Wilkes Booth was rowed across the river, a week after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. The creek itself was named for Nathaniel Pope, an early landowner in the area.
Reference: Wikipedia
Then & Now: Clopper Grist Mill
This post is a continuation of a series of “Then & Now” images that will show photographs of buildings, street scenes, and other historical locales from Lewis Reed’s Photo Collection alongside photographs of how they appear today. Taken approximately 109 years apart, these photos show the Clopper Grist Mill then and now.
Clopper Mill (THEN): Francis Cassatt Clopper bought this mill and 541 acres in 1810, but the earliest mention of a mill on this site dates back to 1777. Clopper’s mill was a square, three-story grist mill, with basement and first floor levels made of local field stone and a third story of brick. The mill was destroyed by a fire in 1947.
On April 15, 1865 Clopper Mill became part of national history when would-be assassin of the Vice President of the United States, George Atzerodt, spent the night there while fleeing from Washington D.C. after the assassination of President Lincoln. George was part of the gang assembled by John Wilkes Booth to eliminate the heads of the U.S. government. He was supposed to kill Vice President Johnson at the Willard Hotel at the same time as Booth assassinated the President. But Atzerodt ran out of courage and instead made his way to Germantown.
Clopper Grist Mill. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1910
Clopper Mill (NOW): The ruins of this large brick and stone mill stand on the west bank of Great Seneca Creek, just south of Clopper Road near the intersection of Warring Station Road. The property was acquired by the State in 1955 as part of Seneca Creek State Park.
Clopper’s Mill Ruins today.
The First Plymouth was Introduced by Chrysler on This Date in 1928
Plymouths were sold at Reed Brothers from 1930-1969.
The first Plymouth automobile was introduced on July 7, 1928. Plymouth was Chrysler Corporation’s first entry in the low-priced field, which at the time was already dominated by Chevrolet and Ford. Plymouths were actually priced slightly higher than their competition, but offered all standard features such as internal expanding hydraulic brakes that the competition did not provide. While the original purpose of the Plymouth was to serve a lower-end marketing niche, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the marque helped significantly in ensuring the survival of the Chrysler Corporation in a decade when many other car companies failed. Beginning in 1930, Plymouths were sold by all three Chrysler divisions (Chrysler, DeSoto, and Dodge).
Plymouth sales were a bright spot during this dismal automotive period, and by 1931 Plymouth rose to the number three spot among all cars. Plymouth almost surpassed Ford in 1940 and 1941 as the second most popular make of automobiles in the U.S.
In 1957, Virgil Exner’s new Forward Look design theme, produced cars with much more advanced styling than Chevrolet or Ford. 1957 total production soared to 726,009, about 200,000 more than 1956, and the largest output yet for Plymouth. However, the 1957–1958 Forward Look models suffered from poor materials, spotty build quality and inadequate corrosion protection; they were rust-prone and greatly damaged Chrysler’s reputation.
Most Plymouth models offered from the late 1970s onward, such as the Volaré, Acclaim, Laser, Neon, and Breeze, were badge-engineered versions of Chrysler, Dodge, or Mitsubishi models. By the 1990s, Plymouth had lost much of its identity, as its models continued to overlap in features and prices with Dodges. Plymouth’s product offerings and buyer appeal, and sales continued to fall.
1999 Plymouth Prowler
By the late 1990s, only four vehicles were sold under the Plymouth name: the Voyager/Grand Voyager minivans, the Breeze mid-size sedan, the Neon compact car, and the Prowler sports car, which was to be the last model unique to Plymouth. The Prowler came about as part of Chrysler’s efforts (the last as it turned out) to differentiate Plymouth from the rest of its lineup in hopes of keeping the brand alive. It was hoped that it would be received well enough to garner some attention, some of which might spill over into some of their other models.
Plymouth rarely exceeded 200,000 cars per year after 1990. Consequently, DaimlerChrysler decided to drop the make after a limited run of 2001 models. This was announced on November 3, 1999.
Montgomery County Police Department Celebrates 97th Anniversary (1922-2019)
This is the first known photograph of the entire MCPD. Pictured left to right: Earl Burdine, Lawrence Clagett, Guy Jones, Chief Charles Cooley, Leroy Rodgers, and Oscar Gaither. Photo taken by Lewis Reed on July 4, 1922.
Today marks the 243rd anniversary of the birth of our nation and the 97th anniversary of the beginning of the Montgomery County Police Department. Cattle rustling, bootlegging and stealing poultry were among the most common crimes when Montgomery County hired its first police chief and five officers in July 1922. So widespread was the theft of chickens and turkeys that some residents employed a homespun form of crime prevention by cutting off a specific claw on their birds to identify them. “Officers knew who all the chicken thieves were,” said one historical account of the era put together by the police department, “and upon getting a report of missing Rhode Island Reds, or some other breed, would head straight for the thieves’ hideaway to try to catch them ‘red handed’ before the birds got to the frying pan.”
Posing in front of Reed Brothers Dodge on July 4, 1922 Chief Charles Cooley, center, and his men of the first mounted unit of the Montgomery County Police Force, were on their first day of duty. For several years, since there was no police station, the officers would meet for “roll call” on the steps of the Red Brick Courthouse in Rockville at 2:00 p.m. every day to let each other know they were alive and well. Chief Cooley was given the privilege of a Model T Ford. The chief was paid $1,800 a year (the chief now gets $112,564) while the officers got $1,500. Each of the officers was issued a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a .38 Smith & Wesson handgun, a black jack, law book and was allotted $300.00 a year for the upkeep of their motorcycle. Jones patrolled Silver Spring, Rodgers the Bethesda-Chevy Chase area and Burdine, Clagett and Gaither the Upper County areas.
The county’s population in the early 1920s was just 35,000 (it’s now more than 800,000). Much of the county was farmland, which accounted for the thefts of livestock. It also was the Prohibition era, when bootlegging and moonshine still factored routinely on an officer’s shift.
The officers worked 14 hours at night, 10 hours in the day, with two days off every two weeks. But they were on call at all times. Since there was no mobile radio contact (the first one-way radio system was installed in cars in the early 1930s), the officers tended to hang around the courthouse or a local firehouse that had a phone.
One of the officers came up with the idea of placing a flashing red beacon light on a pole atop the Rockville courthouse. When flashing, it would alert police that they had a call or were wanted at the office. In 1927, similar lights were used at district stations in Silver Spring and Bethesda.
Congratulations MCPD and thank you for your many years of service!
Reed Brothers Auto Glass & Body Shop
Circa 1968, the concrete ramp on the left leads up to the Auto Glass and Body Repair Shop
With a surge in automobile purchases in the early 1900’s, and an equal amount of car accidents and breakdowns, Reed Brothers began offering collision repair services. Just as the automobile has gone through numerous transformations over the last century, so has the auto body repair industry. When Henry Ford first mass produced the car in 1908, it was so new and unlike any other means of transportation at the time, that no one, outside of the few people who designed and built the old Model T Fords, was really qualified to do repairs. In the early years, many people turned to a machinist or even a bicycle repair shop for car repairs. As the popularity of the automobile grew, so did the demand for experienced and reliable mechanics and auto body specialists.
By the 1920s, there were a great deal of cars on the roads, which meant that manufacturers and dealerships needed to provide drivers with the means of repairing their vehicles in the event of a collision or breakdown. To meet this demand, manufacturers started making standardized parts that could easily replace damaged components of a vehicle. Dealerships were now able to employ mechanics that were able to easily repair vehicles using the prefabricated parts provided by the manufacturers. This method of auto repair lasted into the 1930s and 40s, though production and demand for repairs did hit a major decline at this time due to the Great Depression and World War II.
As business expanded, Reed Brothers began to explore additional opportunities within the automobile repair industry. In 1947, Reed Brothers added a separately maintained glass shop in their service department which was equipped to replace all types of automobile glass. The glass installations were done by an experienced glazier who had enough work to keep him busy full-time. It eliminated a good deal of the confusion and overlapping which sometimes occurred when glass orders were mixed in with the usual repair work. A separate work area was set up for the glazier and he always had an adequate supply of glass in boxes to be cut down to the needs of any job, ground and polished.
In addition to auto replacements, glass was also cut for mirrors and table tops. Another innovation of the repair department was a separate paint and body shop which was located next to the glass shop. Reed Brothers was capable of repairing all makes and models from all manufacturers with factory-prepared paints available to match any color of car. They had the ability to give all around service except upholstery work and tire recapping.
In 1930, Reed Brothers added the Plymouth line and soon after Dodge trucks. Hand in hand with straight sales was the growth of the service department which at that time had six factory trained mechanics who had full knowledge of automobile needs and how to take care of them. Reed Brothers also owned and operated their Gulf gasoline and service station which was adjacent to their salesroom and repair shop.
By the 1970s, Reed Brothers Dodge Body Shop used state of the art equipment in the repair and refinishing process on all vehicles. Their Chief frame machine utilized a laser measuring system to ensure precision alignment of all body and frame components. The Blowtherm downdraft booth with bake cycle produced a “factory cured” finish that lesser equipment simply cannot match.
Reed Brothers Dodge had computer downloaded specifications for practically every vehicle made and they color match all paints in-house, with world renowned Spies Hecker paint and mixing system. The skilled “plastic surgeons” of the automobile world, their technicians were all formally trained professional with ASE and I-CAR, which kept them up to the minute with the latest technology.
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Reed Brothers Dodge History (1915-2012) by Jeanne Gartner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Reed Brothers Dodge History 1915 – 2012 
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