Before Trick-or-Treating: Lewis Reed’s Photographs Capture Halloween in Early Montgomery County
Homemade masks, autumn parties, practical jokes and an eerie clown on horseback reveal how Marylanders celebrated Halloween more than a century ago.
Long before Montgomery County neighborhoods filled with porch lights, plastic pumpkins and children carrying bags of candy, Halloween had a very different look.
There were no inflatable ghosts covering front lawns. Costumes were more likely to be assembled at home than purchased in a store. And the familiar ritual of children traveling door to door calling “trick or treat” had not yet become the centerpiece of the holiday.
Fortunately, we can still catch glimpses of that earlier Halloween.
Among the many photographs taken by Lewis Reed of Montgomery County, Maryland, are several remarkable images associated with Halloween celebrations of the early 20th century. Reed is better known locally as the founder of Reed Brothers Dodge in Rockville, but long before and throughout his years in business, he was also an enthusiastic photographer who recorded the people, places and everyday life around him.
His Halloween photographs open a small window onto a holiday that was still evolving into the celebration we recognize today.
A Mask Was Sometimes All You Needed
Halloween preparations, circa 1914. These women pose with homemade masks for an upcoming celebration. Photograph by Lewis Reed.
One of Reed’s photographs, dating to about 1914, shows women holding simple masks in preparation for Halloween. To modern eyes, the scene may hardly look like “costumes” at all. That is precisely what makes the photograph so interesting.
Early 20th-century Halloween celebrations retained much of the atmosphere of the masquerade. Revelers might wear ordinary clothing accompanied by a mask, hat or other homemade disguise rather than dress from head to toe as a recognizable character. Manufactured Halloween costumes became increasingly available during the following decades.
The photograph captures that transition almost perfectly: familiar people made mysterious for an evening by little more than a mask.
It also reminds us how much of Halloween once depended upon imagination rather than merchandise.
Halloween Was a Social Occasion
Family and friends gathered for a Halloween celebration more than a century ago. The homemade masks and disguises give the photograph an unmistakably eerie quality. Photograph by Lewis Reed.
Another Reed photograph preserves a Halloween gathering from roughly the same period.
The faces, masks and unusual assortment of hats can look surprisingly unsettling today. But Halloween parties were popular social occasions, particularly among teenagers and adults.
Period newspaper accounts describe homes decorated with autumn leaves, flowers, lanterns and orange-and-black decorations. Games might be followed by music and dancing, often with plenty of refreshments before the evening ended. Contemporary Halloween menus included familiar seasonal favorites such as pumpkin pie and molasses cookies, alongside dishes that would seem decidedly less familiar today.
The emphasis was on gathering together.
Halloween was not yet overwhelmingly a children’s holiday. Historical accounts of the period note that modern door-to-door trick-or-treating had not become the dominant American custom it would later become.
Newspapers Help Fill in What the Camera Could Not
Lewis Reed’s photographs freeze individual moments, but newspapers from the same years help bring the scenes to life.
Stores advertised masks, costumes and masquerade supplies as Halloween approached. Society columns reported parties and sometimes even identified the guests who attended them. Recipes appeared for Halloween refreshments.
And then there were the warnings.
The Evening Star, October 31, 1916
Because Halloween had another longstanding tradition: mischief.
Young revelers were expected to engage in a certain amount of harmless trouble, but communities did not always agree about what qualified as harmless.
An October 31, 1916 edition of The Evening Star, for example, carried warnings concerning Halloween pranks. Among the activities attracting unwanted attention was the practice of throwing flour.
Imagine answering your front door on Halloween evening and receiving a handful of flour instead of handing out a miniature candy bar.
The past can seem very distant until a newspaper reports exactly what people were worried about on an ordinary Tuesday night.
From Mischief to Community Celebration
As the new century progressed, communities increasingly tried to channel Halloween mischief into organized entertainment.
Parties, civic events and parades offered a way to turn Halloween into a community occasion rather than an evening of overturned objects, practical jokes and property damage. By the 1920s, Halloween was gradually assuming more of the organized, public character that would help shape later celebrations.
And somewhere along the way, Lewis Reed pointed his camera at one of the strangest Halloween figures in his collection.
The Clown on Horseback
A masked clown wearing dark glasses rides horseback during an early Halloween parade or celebration. The location is unknown. Photograph by Lewis Reed.
Few historic photographs require as little explanation as this one.
A clown sits astride a horse.
He wears an elaborate costume, an oversized collar, a pointed hat and round dark glasses.
More than a century after the shutter clicked, the photograph somehow manages to be humorous, theatrical and just a little unnerving at the same time.
Unfortunately, the location has not been identified. But that uncertainty is part of the fascination of working with a historic photograph collection. Not every image arrives with a caption. Sometimes the photograph survives while the names, date and circumstances slowly disappear.
What remains is the moment itself.
And in this case, it is a wonderfully peculiar piece of Halloween history.
Lewis Reed’s Camera Preserved Everyday History
Lewis Reed did not photograph only important ceremonies or prominent citizens. His camera also recorded farms, roads, automobiles, businesses, family gatherings, community events and seemingly ordinary moments throughout Montgomery County.
That breadth is what makes his photographs so valuable today.
A picture of several people preparing masks for a party probably did not seem historically significant when the photograph was made. Neither did a group posing at a Halloween gathering.
But more than a century later, such photographs allow us to study things that official histories rarely preserve: what people wore, how they entertained themselves, what their homes looked like and how traditions changed from one generation to the next.
Montgomery History today uses Lewis Reed photographs in interpreting the county’s early 20th-century past, including images documenting major community events and institutions.
Even Reed’s seasonal photographs extend beyond Halloween. One surviving image shows men gathering pumpkins in Thomas Kelley’s field near Pleasant Hills in the Darnestown area during the early 1900s, preserving another small piece of Montgomery County’s autumn past.
Men gathering pumpkins in Thomas Kelley’s field near Pleasant Hills in the Darnestown area, early 1900s. Lewis Reed’s photographs preserved not only community celebrations, but also the seasonal traditions of everyday life in Montgomery County. Photograph by Lewis Reed.
Halloween Changes. Photographs Remain.
Halloween has changed enormously since Lewis Reed raised his camera more than a century ago.
Masks became full costumes. Homemade disguises gave way to mass-produced characters. Mischief nights gradually yielded to organized community celebrations. Trick-or-treating became an American childhood tradition, and Halloween grew into one of the country’s most recognizable holidays.
But look closely at Reed’s photographs and something remains familiar.
People were dressing up.
Friends were gathering.
Someone was undoubtedly preparing food.
And somebody, apparently, thought riding through a Halloween parade dressed as a clown in sunglasses was a perfectly good idea.
More than one hundred years later, Lewis Reed’s camera lets us join the party.
Then and Now: Lewis Reed’s 1915 Photograph of the Lake House Hotel in Saylorsburg
In 1915, Lewis Reed pointed his camera toward the Lake House Hotel in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, capturing a quiet roadside scene that would take on an entirely different meaning more than a century later.
Today, the historic building is associated with the Hotel of Horror and the legends that have grown around it. But Reed’s photograph preserves another chapter of its history, when the Lake House was a well-established Pocono destination welcoming travelers long before anyone came there looking for ghosts.
Saylorsburg Lake House Hotel, Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, 1915. Photographed by Lewis Reed. Long before the historic building became home to the Hotel of Horror, it welcomed travelers to Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.
Lewis Reed and His Camera
Lewis Reed was photographing people and places throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, leaving behind an extraordinary visual record of a rapidly changing America. His photographs include family gatherings, farms, automobiles, roads, businesses, buildings, and scenes encountered during his travels.
The Lake House photograph is particularly interesting because it takes Reed beyond his familiar Montgomery County, Maryland surroundings and into Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.
Rather than concentrating on individual people, Reed positioned himself across the roadway and photographed nearly the entire hotel. The result is a remarkably clear record of the building as it appeared in 1915.
The tall Victorian structure dominates the scene. Dormer windows rise from the roof, a large chimney towers above the building, and mature trees frame the property. Near the road stands a circular sign identifying the Lake House Hotel. Several people can also be seen around the building, small figures preserved almost incidentally in Reed’s view.
More than a century later, details that probably seemed ordinary when Reed pressed the shutter have become part of the photograph’s historical value.
A Hotel From an Earlier Age of Travel
The property had already been serving travelers for generations before Lewis Reed arrived with his camera.
According to the history published by the present-day Hotel of Horror, an earlier inn known as the Saylorsburg Hotel was built by Charles Saylor in 1847 on a site associated with stagecoach travel dating even farther back. The property was substantially enlarged during the late nineteenth century, and a major expansion completed around 1895 produced much of the imposing hotel Lewis Reed photographed twenty years later.
By 1915, the Lake House was part of an established Pocono tradition of hotels, boarding houses, lakeside recreation, and summer retreats.
Historic postcards from the early twentieth century show the Lake House being promoted to visitors during the years immediately before Reed photographed it. Travelers came to the Poconos for cooler summer weather, scenery, recreation, and a temporary escape from increasingly crowded cities.
Reed captured the hotel at a particularly interesting moment in American transportation history.
The automobile was beginning to give ordinary travelers greater freedom to explore destinations away from railroad lines and fixed schedules. Roads were improving, automobile ownership was growing, and Americans were discovering an entirely new way to travel.
For Lewis Reed, 1915 was significant for another reason. It was the same year in which he became involved in the Rockville Garage in Maryland, the business that would eventually become Reed Brothers Dodge.
His Saylorsburg photograph therefore comes from the very period when the automobile was beginning to shape not only his own future but the way Americans traveled.
The Hotel Reinvents Itself
The Lake House survived while the world around it changed dramatically. Its traditional hotel years eventually came to an end. The property was purchased in 1990 and converted into an antique co-op, according to the building’s published history. Then came the transformation that would give the old hotel an entirely new identity.
In October 1992, a haunted attraction opened inside the historic structure. More than three decades later, the Hotel of Horror and Altered Nightmares continue to operate there during the Halloween season.
What makes the attraction unusual is that the old hotel is not simply a theme created for entertainment. The historic building itself remains part of the experience, with its original rooms, corridors, staircases, upper floors and lower-level spaces forming the setting.
The former Lake House Hotel in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, as it appeared in 2025. More than a century after Lewis Reed photographed the building in 1915, the historic structure still stands, preserving a visible link to the Pocono region’s early era of hotels, roadside travel, and tourism. Google image, 2025.
History, Folklore and a Haunted Reputation
As the building aged, stories and legends naturally accumulated around it. Some accounts associated with the property have included tales of unexplained deaths, wartime events and other disturbing episodes. Such stories have contributed greatly to the building’s modern reputation, but folklore should not be confused with documented history.
That distinction makes Lewis Reed’s photograph especially valuable. His camera gives us something legends cannot: a direct visual record.
There are no ghosts, theatrical effects or Halloween decorations in Reed’s 1915 photograph. Instead, we see the Lake House as travelers of his generation would have known it, a substantial roadside hotel serving visitors during the early years of automobile travel.
A Moment Preserved in 1915
Lewis Reed could not have known what the Lake House would become when he photographed it more than a century ago. He simply recorded a place that caught his attention.
That is one of the remarkable qualities of his surviving photographic collection. Many of the buildings, roads, farms and communities he photographed were not necessarily considered historic when he stood before them. They were part of everyday life.
Time changed that.
Buildings disappeared. Roads were widened. Landscapes were transformed. Businesses closed and communities expanded. Places once considered ordinary became pieces of history.
The Lake House Hotel followed a somewhat different course. Remarkably, the building survived.
Today, visitors travel to Saylorsburg for reasons Lewis Reed could never have imagined. Yet beneath the haunted-house reputation remains the same historic hotel that stood beside the road when he raised his camera in 1915.
His photograph allows us to see beyond the legends and return, if only for a moment, to an earlier era in the Pocono Mountains.
More than 110 years later, that single photograph has become a historical record of its own: one photographer, one roadside hotel and one moment in 1915 preserved long after the world around them changed.
Autumn at Pleasant Hills: A Pumpkin Harvest in Early Darnestown
In the early 1900s, Darnestown was still firmly rooted in agriculture, with large family farms, open fields, and country roads defining much of the surrounding landscape. Pleasant Hills was part of that rural world, and the Kelley family was among the local families whose farm products were well known throughout the area.
Lewis Reed’s photograph of three men standing in Thomas Kelley’s pumpkin field preserves a rare glimpse of that earlier Darnestown. The men are clearly not farm workers at harvest. Dressed in jackets, hats, and polished shoes, they appear to have simply stopped among the pumpkins and posed for Reed’s camera, turning an ordinary autumn visit into a lasting record of local history.
Men gathering pumpkins in Thomas Kelley’s field near Pleasant Hills in the Darnestown area, early 1900s. Lewis Reed’s photographs preserved not only community celebrations, but also the seasonal traditions of everyday life in Montgomery County. Photograph by Lewis Reed.
Pleasant Hills was a substantial working farm, and the Kelley family became especially associated with fresh produce, including the well-known “Kelley Corn” wagon that traveled through the community. Pumpkins were part of the farm’s autumn landscape at a time when seasonal produce came directly from nearby fields and local farms remained closely tied to everyday life.
Lewis Reed knew this countryside well. Raised in Darnestown, he photographed the people, farms, roads, homes, and small moments that surrounded him. At the time, such scenes would have seemed entirely ordinary, but today they preserve details that written records rarely capture: how people dressed, where they gathered, and what the rural landscape looked like before suburban growth transformed much of western Montgomery County.
That is what gives this photograph its lasting importance. It is more than a picture of three men in a pumpkin field. It is a surviving fragment of early Darnestown, preserving Pleasant Hills as part of a farming community that has largely disappeared from the modern landscape.
The Day Auto Racing Came to Rockville: Rare Photos from 1923
On Saturday, August 25, 1923, spectators gathered at the Rockville Fairgrounds for something never before seen there: automobile racing.
Professional drivers brought their high-powered racing machines to the half-mile dirt track for the first automobile races ever held at the Rockville Fair. Standing trackside with his camera was Rockville automobile dealer and photographer Lewis Reed, who captured a remarkable series of photographs of the action.
More than a century later, his images preserve the day auto racing came to Rockville.
Rockville drew a large crowd for its first automobile races at the Rockville Fair, August 25, 1923. Photo by Lewis Reed.
Rockville’s First Auto Races
The automobile races were the featured attraction on the final day of the 1923 Fair. Contemporary newspaper accounts described them as an innovation for Rockville and confirmed that they were the first automobile races ever held there.
Seven high-powered cars competed in events ranging from one to ten miles, driven by some of the leading professional racers of the day. Canadian dirt-track racer Frank Ripple was among the featured drivers and was expected to attempt speed records in a powerful machine equipped with a 140-horsepower airplane engine.
The new attraction proved popular. Except for Thursday, traditionally the Fair’s biggest day, the Saturday automobile races reportedly drew the largest crowd of the five-day event.
Five racers charge around the dirt track at the Rockville Fairgrounds, August 25, 1923. Photo by Lewis Reed.
Racing on the Dirt Track
Lewis Reed’s photographs show just how exciting early automobile racing could be. Cars raced closely together on the unpaved oval, their narrow tires throwing enormous clouds of dust into the air as drivers fought for position around the sweeping curves.
Spectators stood remarkably close to the action.
Race cars disappear into a cloud of dust while rounding the Rockville Fairgrounds track. Print made from a Lewis Reed glass negative.
One of Lewis Reed’s most interesting photographs from the races shows a car carrying two men. The passenger was a riding mechanic, once a familiar figure in early automobile racing. In addition to watching the mechanical condition of the car, he served as an extra set of eyes for the driver, keeping watch on competitors approaching from behind.
Driver and riding mechanic on the dirt track at the Rockville Fairgrounds, August 25, 1923. Photo by Lewis Reed.
A Future Indianapolis 500 Driver Raced at Rockville
Years after I first published these photographs, the story took an unexpected turn.
I received a message from John Snowberger, whose father, Russ Snowberger, raced at the Rockville Fairgrounds during the early 1920s. John told me that he had photographs of his father in his race car and believed that my grandfather, Lewis Reed, may have taken them.
Russ Snowberger, born in Denton, Maryland, raced throughout the region before going on to become a nationally known driver and a veteran of the Indianapolis 500.
Although I have not been able to establish that Snowberger competed specifically in the August 25, 1923 races, his son’s recollection provides a fascinating connection between Rockville’s early dirt-track racing and a driver who would later compete on one of the world’s most famous speedways.
It also raises an intriguing possibility: somewhere among Lewis Reed’s surviving photographs of early race cars and drivers may be an unidentified image of a young Russ Snowberger.
A Moment Preserved in Photographs
More than a century later, Lewis Reed’s photographs provide a rare visual record of the day automobile racing first came to the Rockville Fair.
They capture speeding cars, clouds of dust, spectators lining the track, and an era when automobile racing was still new enough to be a major local attraction.
And thanks to a message received nearly a century later from the son of an Indianapolis 500 driver, we now know that the old Rockville dirt track had connections extending well beyond Montgomery County.
For one dusty Saturday in August 1923, Rockville became a racing town.
From Rockville to Gaithersburg: The Montgomery County Fair Through the Lens of Lewis Reed
Special Feature for Montgomery County Agricultural Fair Week
August 14–22, 2026
A look back at the fair’s early years through the lens of Lewis Reed.
Every August, hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair to enjoy livestock exhibitions, agricultural displays, carnival rides, competitions, concerts, and family traditions that have endured for generations. While today’s fairgrounds in Gaithersburg are familiar to many, the fair itself began long before the current site existed.
Organized in 1846 by the Montgomery County Agricultural Society, the annual fair was established to promote agriculture, encourage innovation, and strengthen the county’s farming community. For decades, it brought together farmers, merchants, craftsmen, and families from across Montgomery County to exchange ideas, exhibit their finest livestock and crops, and celebrate the region’s agricultural heritage.
By the time Lewis Reed began photographing Montgomery County around the turn of the twentieth century, the fair had become one of the county’s largest and most anticipated annual events. Carrying his camera throughout the fairgrounds, Reed documented not only the exhibits and attractions but also the people who made the fair an enduring community tradition.
Fairgoers stroll along the midway in their Sunday best, ca. 1910. Broad-brimmed hats, long flowing dresses, and tailored suits reflected the fashion of the era, when dressing for the county fair was as much a social occasion as the event itself.
Reed’s photographs reveal a fair that was both educational and entertaining. Agriculture remained its foundation, but visitors also came to enjoy the excitement of the midway, where amusement rides, games, and food vendors transformed the fairgrounds into a festive gathering place for young and old alike.
Ferris Wheel at the Montgomery County Fair, Rockville, ca. 1910. One of the fair’s most popular attractions towered above the fairgrounds, symbolizing how the annual exhibition combined agricultural traditions with modern entertainment.
Behind the excitement of the midway was the fair’s original purpose. Exhibition halls displayed the county’s finest produce, flowers, baked goods, preserves, and handcrafted items, while nearby barns housed prize-winning livestock representing the best of Montgomery County’s farms. Manufacturers exhibited the latest farm machinery and equipment, giving visitors an opportunity to see how new technology was steadily transforming rural life.
Agriculture remained the heart of the fair. Manufacturers displayed the latest farm machinery, giving local farmers an opportunity to compare new equipment and modern farming methods.
Visitors explored displays celebrating Montgomery County’s agricultural achievements, local craftsmanship, and community pride.
An exhibitor captures the attention of fairgoers.
One of Lewis Reed’s most compelling photographs captures hundreds of automobiles parked throughout the fairgrounds. As a lifelong automobile enthusiast and future founder of Reed Brothers Dodge, Reed recognized that the motorcar was transforming Montgomery County. His photograph preserves that moment when the automobile had become an integral part of daily life and community gatherings.
Hundreds of cars in the parking lot.
The grandstand and one-third-mile dirt race track were among the fair’s most popular attractions. Horse racing remained a favorite event, while bicycle races, motorcycle exhibitions, and eventually automobile competitions reflected America’s growing fascination with speed and mechanical innovation. Reed’s photographs preserve these moments at a time when transportation itself was rapidly changing.
Bicycle races became very popular throughout the country and were a novel event at the Rockville Fairgrounds as early as 1915. The track was a half-mile dirt racing oval with wide, sweeping curves and a grandstand for spectators, which made for clear views. Notice the riders are in shirts and ties.
Harness racing was one of the main attractions at the race track before the introduction of the automobile and the subsequent popularity of racing cars.
Spectators pack the grandstand for the automobile races at the Rockville Fair, August 25, 1923. Racing events drew visitors from across the region and showcased the excitement of the new motor age.
The Rockville fairgrounds continued to host the Montgomery County Fair until 1932, when financial hardships brought on by the Great Depression forced the Agricultural Society to sell the property. The site would later become the home of Richard Montgomery High School. In 1949, hundreds of volunteers joined together to establish the Montgomery County Agricultural Center in Gaithersburg, where the fair continues today.
Winter at the Rockville Fairgrounds, 1910. Lewis Reed’s photograph captures a rare, tranquil view of the fairgrounds between seasons, preserving a landscape that would eventually disappear from Montgomery County.
Much has changed since Lewis Reed walked the fairgrounds with his camera. The original race track has disappeared, the Rockville fairgrounds exist only in photographs, and Montgomery County has grown from a rural farming community into one of Maryland’s most populous counties. Yet the fair’s mission has remained remarkably consistent: celebrating agriculture, education, community, and innovation.
As visitors gather for this year’s Montgomery County Agricultural Fair, Lewis Reed’s photographs offer a rare opportunity to look back at the fair’s early years and experience a tradition that has united generations of Montgomery County residents for nearly 180 years.
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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.
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