Rare Images of Early Rockville from Lewis Reed’s Collection
This photograph was marked only “Rockville.” Note that the sidewalks are board planks elevated from street level. Photo by Lewis Reed ca, 1912
What makes Rockville such an interesting place? It’s interesting history! Old photos have an amazing way of showing us what life was like years ago and depicting how our communities once looked. You might not realize how much things have changed until you look back and see what it looked like in the past.
A bit of Rockville history: More than 250 years ago, land grants to European settlers formed the nucleus for today’s Rockville, Maryland. By the 1750s local farmers were transporting tobacco to market in Georgetown down a road formerly used by Indians. The tiny settlement was designated as the seat of the new Montgomery County in 1776. Known as Rockville by 1803, the town’s life centered on Courthouse activity. More homes and shops were built, and the town of nearly 600 was incorporated in 1860. The dynamics that created Rockville in the 18th and 19th centuries are still the same ones attracting newcomers today: the presence of county government, a favorable location close to the nation’s capital, converging transportation routes that bring people here, and identity as an independent municipality.
Take a journey back in time through the lens of Lewis Reed and see what Rockville looked like more than one hundred years ago. As always, click the photos to get a better look.
North side of East Montgomery Avenue near the courthouse, ca. 1914. Note the trolley car on the left. Photo by Lewis Reed
Shops sold groceries, baked goods, sewing machines, hats, lumber, and hardware. Families lived above their stores, renting rooms to others.
Court House Triangle. The large white house behind the Confederate Statue is the Hicks House. The Montgomery House Hotel is to the right of the Hicks House, just out of the image. Photo by Lewis Reed, 1914
On September 28, 1917 a draft for World War I began and the first 40 men reported for duty at the Montgomery County Court House in Rockville, Maryland. In the photograph below, cars are parked around the court house during the speech-making in the court room to drafted men. Montgomery County’s first recruits left Rockville by train for Camp Meade, Maryland on this same day. They each received a package of smoking tobacco and a rousing send-off from two thousand people after speeches at the courthouse, dinner at the Montgomery House Hotel, and a parade to the depot. About 160 Rockville men served in the eighteen-month war. One of those men was Rockville resident, Edgar Reed. Edgar was fortunate enough to survive World War I and to settle back in Rockville and enjoy a successful life and career in the automobile business.
Montgomery County Court House. Photo by Lewis Reed, 1917.
Notice that most of the cars in the above photo have two license plates: at this time, you needed a separate tag to drive a car in the District of Columbia. There is also horse dung in the dirt road (E. Montgomery Avenue), suggesting buggies had been by recently as well. Barely visible in the background left is the Maryland National Bank building, which was demolished during urban renewal in the late 1960s.
Suburban Electrical Company on Montgomery Avenue in Rockville. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca.1914
The upper story of this building was the living quarters of Mr and Mrs B. F. Hicks. The building was later acquired by W. Valentine Wilson, who tore it down and replaced is with the “SECO” for Mr Wilson’s Suburban Electric Company. The ground floor was made into a moving picture theater.
W. Hicks General Store on Montgomery Avenue Rockville. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1914
Washington Hicks operated this general or dry goods store in Rockville from the late 19th century until 1940. His son W. Guy Hicks continued to run the store until his retirement in the late 1950s. The photo above shows the storefront in 1914.
H. Reisinger Lunch Room on Montgomery Avenue Rockville 1914. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1914
H. Reisinger Bakery, Confectionery, Ice Cream and Lunch Room, 5 and 10-cent Bargain Store on Montgomery Avenue, Rockville.
Clerks at J. F. Collins General Store on East Montgomery Avenue. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca, 1914
On a bleak night in February 1921, a pistol shot was fired while others yelled, “Fire!”. From John Collin’s store on East Montgomery Avenue — beloved by local children for Cracker Jacks and penny candy — flames reached toward the sky. Volunteers arrived with buckets while others operated the hose reels and hook and ladder truck. The main street was saved with help from men and equipment of Washington, D.C., but Collins’s store was a smouldering ruin. A few weeks later, fifty concerned townspeople elected officers of the newly formed Rockville Volunteer Fire Department.
Rockville looking east down Montgomery Avenue at Perry Street (now Maryland Avenue); Vinson’s Pharmacy is on the corner. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1906.
Most roads in Montgomery County, even those running though towns, were dirt. In the photo above, taken in downtown Rockville, a delivery wagon can be seen at the curb, as well as advertisements for Coca-Cola, which would have been a product only 20 years old at that time, having been invented and trademarked in 1887. Trolley tracks bisect Montgomery Avenue. Today, the view down this street ends with stairs to the pedestrian overpass, which leads over Hungerford Drive into the Rockville Metro Station.
The drugstore was built in the 1880s and was run by Robert William “Doc” Vinson from 1900 until his death in 1958. The drugstore was also a popular gathering place for city politicians, and that President Woodrow Wilson once personally traveled there to buy Wolfhound tablets. The building was torn down in 1962, and replaced with an office building during Rockville’s “urban renewal”.
Vinson’s Drug Store Fearon’s Pharmacy (as named in the window; also Owen’s and Vinson’s at other times). L to R Tom Talbott, Wardlow Mason, Otho Talbott, unknown, Dr. Fearon. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1898.
Rockville Town Hall. Photo by Lewis Reed, 1912
Rockville Town Hall was incorporated in 1881 to “improve the educational, moral, scientific, literary and social condition of the community. Stock sold at ten dollars per share raised most of the six thousand dollars needed to erect a handsome two-story brick building on Montgomery Avenue. The Town Hall opened on Tuesday evening, July 18,1882. For the next half century, the Town Hall operated as a small-town cultural center, with a four hundred-seat auditorium on the second floor, a stage, balcony, and dressing rooms, a ticket office on the lower level and seven leased offices. The community used the facility for visiting lectures, theatrical and musical performances, dances, and other suitable “instruction and amusement”.
Rockville Court House. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1914
For most of Montgomery County’s history, a single building, familiarly known as “The Courthouse,” served all functions of local government. The Red Brick Courthouse is the county’s third on this site, constructed in 1891 at a cost of $50,000. Roads were crude, daily trains connected county commuters and farmers with the nation’s capital, and trolley tracks were planned between Rockville and Georgetown. The county’s 27,185 residents visited the courthouse as litigants and jurors, to pay taxes, buy dog tags, probate wills, obtain marriage and business licenses, record deeds, speak to County Commissioners, and request law enforcement from the Sheriff. Designated a historic building on July 19, 1965 by the Montgomery County Historical Society.
St Marys Catholic Church. Photo by Lewis Reed, c. 1914.
Founded in 1813, historic St. Mary’s Church led the way for Catholics in Montgomery County. The cemetery in front of the chapel is the final resting place of literary legend F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda.
Sources:
75 Years of Rockville, Maryland
As remembered by William F. Prettyman
Rockville: Portrait of a City by Eileen S. McGuckian
Step Into Christmas Past at Reed Family Home
Lewis Reed’s craftsman-style home, looking rather solitary on a snowy day. Photo by Lewis Reed.
The following photos from Lewis Reed’s collection are a fabulous glimpse into Christmas inside the Reed family home at 301 North Frederick Avenue in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was not a huge house, a modest Sears and Roebuck craftsman-style home built in 1926. Some of my earliest memories are visits to this home as I spent a lot of time there during my childhood.
A lot of people assume that the traditions we follow have looked pretty much the same since their inception but, in most cases, like everything else in life, Christmas has definitely changed over the years.
Snow on the ground means it’s time for building a (presidential) snowman. This photo is Lewis Reed and the snowman he built of George Washington.
The trees were big back then and always fresh. They went right to the ceiling and were very wide. Early Christmas trees were generally fastened onto a flat board surrounded with fence-rails, snow villages and carpeted with cotton blankets of snow. Lots of tinsel and strings of popcorn garnish the trees.
A small snow scene with what appears to be a miniature church is arranged at the foot of the Christmas tree. A popcorn garland adorns the tree. Photo by Lewis Reed
No room for a star on the top of this tree! And just look at those big Santa and Angel dolls. A miniature church with picket fence is arranged at the base of the tree. Photo by Lewis Reed
Below are photos of Lewis Reed’s snow village set up under the Christmas tree decorated with vintage ornaments, tinsel, and lights. I used to have a ton of fun helping my grandfather set up the miniature landscapes with the varied figures, little houses, and trees at Christmastime each year. It seemed like a holiday village right out of a storybook.
A rustic picket fence is used to set off the village display. Photo by Lewis Reed
The snow villages were set up in Lewis Reed’s basement on top of a big table beneath a small Christmas tree. He made the snow scenes entirely by hand using wire-covered cardboard and balled up paper to make hills and pathways. The little houses and figurines would fit into the landscape with cotton ‘snow’ all around; and lights would be wired underneath. It was just amazing to me.
Little houses, churches, fences, trees, and pathways were added to the scene. Some of the houses have charming light effects in the windows. Photo by Lewis Reed
These Christmas villages were precursors of the Holiday Villages that were made popular by Dept. 56 that you see today.
Old-fashioned lights can be seen on the tree, along with lit windows in the houses. Photo by Lewis Reed
Looking back on these memories now in my adult mind is like watching my favorite Christmas movie. They are memories of my grandparents house at Christmastime, and are ones I will always treasure.
Then & Now: Saylorsburg Lake House & Hotel of Horror
With Halloween just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to feature a photograph that Lewis Reed took of the Saylorsburg Lake House Hotel, now the site of Hotel of Horror. The aging Lake House Hotel in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, once a vibrant Poconos retreat, was a popular hotel for the region’s tourists who were looking for fun on nearby Saylors Lake. During the hotel’s heyday, its staff was booking rooms a year in advance. Today, the former hotel’s fame is generated from its annual Halloween haunted-house attraction.
Lake House Hotel (THEN): The legend of the Lake House Hotel spans more than two-hundred years. According to local folklore, during World War II, many of the employees at the Lake House were called to assist in the Pennsylvania National Guard, leaving the local asylum with one lone security guard to watch over the entire building. The inmates escaped, made their way to the hotel and took it over. The insane patients performed experiments on the guests. What was once a renowned resort for the rich and famous, became a torture chamber.
Saylorsburg Lake House Hotel. Photo taken by Lewis Reed, 1915.
Hotel of Horror (NOW): This 2019 season will celebrate the 27th year that the Hotel of Horror has been fascinating and horrifying legions of fans from the far reaches of the United States and even internationally. To all the readers of this blog: Have a spooky, enjoyable and very safe Halloween!
Welcome to The Hotel of Horror, The Pocono Mountains Premier Haunted House Attraction
Pumpkin Picking… in 1920
This is a rare photograph of three men in suits pumpkin picking in Thomas Kelley’s field of pumpkins in Pleasant Hills, circa early 1900s. Tom Kelly farmed much of the land around the Pleasant Hills homestead and was famous for his “Kelly Corn” farm wagon of fresh dairy produce during the summer months, as well as the corn that fed visitors to the Montgomery County Fair each August and, of course, his pumpkin patch in the fall.
Pumpkin picking in Darnestown, Maryland circa. early 1900s. Photo by Lewis Reed
Reed Photo Collection Highlight: Early 20th Century Motorcars
Each of the images below from Lewis Reed’s Collection has a car included, whether as a center point of a family photo, in the background of life’s moments, or on a cross-country road trip. These photos give a snapshot not just of the cars at the time, but a peak into an important aspect of the everyday lives of County residents.
There were no paved highways for automobiles to shoot along at 60 and 70 miles an hour; just country roads, filled with ruts, sand, and mud, over which no one wanted to drive at the maximum speed of passenger cars, which was about 30 miles an hour. But every trip was a different adventure.
In the early 20th century, traveling cross-country by automobile was intimidating, if not a little bit dangerous. Cars were unreliable and roads were rough. The child in the photo is my mother, Mary Jane Reed Gartner. Photo by Lewis Reed
A cross-country road trip is a quintessentially American experience. It’s always an adventure, but in modern times it’s a relatively tame one: The roads are paved, signs point the way, and Siri always has your back. If cars had cup holders back then, these folks would be rolling with crystal goblets, not Big Gulps.
Come away with me, Lucille: In my merry Oldsmobile: Down the road of life we’ll fly: Automo-bubbling, you and I….
Ethelene Thomas Reed, who married Lewis Reed in 1921, is sitting in passenger seat of a circa 1918 Oldsmobile Club Roadster and her sister, Celeste Thomas Brown, is sitting behind her in the back seat. Photo by Lewis Reed
1918 Oldsmobile Roadster shown with Ethelene and her sister Celeste behind the wheel. Photo taken by Lewis Reed at the Clinton Clay Thomas family farm which was located on Butterfly Lane in Braddock, Maryland. Photo by Lewis Reed
Back in the early part of the last century when the automobile was still new and a novelty, it was often used for Kodak moments.
Two ladies posing in a 1911 Speedwell Touring car. Check out the humongous steering wheel! Photo by Lewis Reed
The photographs below was taken by Lewis Reed on one of his many cross country road trips. The car is a 1935 Dodge Touring Sedan with Maryland Dealer license plates. Note the rear-hinged “Suicide Door”. Cars of this era did not have seat belts, so there was nothing to hold a passenger in the car. The term “suicide doors” was therefore placed on vehicles with the rear-hinged door configuration, the theory being that the forward motion of the car could cause the door to fly open, possibly causing the unlucky person sitting next to the door to be pulled out of the car, or the door itself could be ripped from its hinges.
I have no idea what prompted my grandfather to take a photo at this location, but perhaps it was the amazing view in the background. Photo by Lewis Reed
Lewis Reed’s 1935 Dodge Touring Sedan. Photo by Lewis Reed
In order for occupants of early 1920’s cars to remain warm during the cold winter months, especially when it was snowing, it was necessary for them to dress warmly and cover themselves with blankets. Note the car in the photo below is mostly open-bodied, with no windows and certainly no heat. Tire chains are on the rear tires. I cannot say with any certainty, but I believe it is Lewis Reed’s car with his wife and baby daughter, Mary Jane, sitting inside all bundled up.
Buffalo Zoo Bear Pits, Buffalo, New York, ca. early 1920s. Photo by Lewis Reed.
Early motorists weren’t afraid to drive in the snow simply because they didn’t have 4-wheel drive and electronic assistance; they just got out and did it. Who would dare go out in these conditions today without an AWD SUV and heated seats?
Car stopped (stuck?) on snowbound road. Although no tire chains are in evidence, they might have been useful coming up that hill. Photo by Lewis Reed
Nobody really thinks about it today. If your car is too cold, then simply switch on the “heater” and soon your car will be warm. However, it wasn’t always that way. What passengers did back then, in the early days of motoring, was bundle up as if one was outdoors. This meant heavy clothing, winter gloves and snow boots. It wasn’t long, however, before car makers realized that a few comforts, like heat in the passenger compartment, or even some type of heated seating, would help sell cars.
There weren’t heaters in these old cars, so motorists had to really bundle up. Photo by Lewis Reed
Lewis Reed’s 1920 Oldsmobile stopped along Goshen Road outside rural Gaithersburg. Photo by Lewis Reed
In 1900 car owners were almost by definition wealthy, especially since they often employed chauffeurs: many wouldn’t have dreamed of trying to operate their own vehicles. The earliest car owners had no real repair business to turn to. To be a successful motorist in the early 1900s, you needed to have some sort of mechanical skills. Or you had to find someone who did. Wealthy people employed private chauffeur-mechanics to not only drive, but also maintain and repair their large, expensive automobiles — rather than learn to do it themselves. Chauffeurs would be in charge of everything to do with the owner’s motor vehicle including repairs and maintenance and cleaning this meant that early personal chauffeurs had to be skilled mechanics. Pierce-Arrow was one of the most common makers of luxury cars in the early 20th century. The price for one of these vehicles was sometimes as much as ten times the price of a standard touring car.
Two ladies with parasols are sitting in the landaulet section of an early Pierce-Arrow limousine, while chauffeur Lewis Reed tends to the motor. The rear portion of the limousine is partitioned from the driver with a glass shield, and covered by a convertible top, which you can see is currently in the lowered position behind the ladies. Ca. 1910
Chauffeur Lewis Reed (left) in the 1914 photo above poses with an unidentified family and their Pierce-Arrow Model 48.
Motor carnage. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1920
Early automobiles were unreliable. They broke down frequently and needed to be pulled out of mud or snow by horses. They meant it back in the good old days when motorists were advised to “get a horse”. The photo shows William Beall in his 1915 Pullman in front of old St Mary’s Church and his younger brother Vernon on horseback “towing” him to Reed Brothers.
Early transportation powered by true “horsepower”. Photo taken by Lewis Reed, 1915
The touring car was one of the most common styles of automobile in the early decades of the 20th century. Nearly every auto manufacturer offered a vehicle in this style. Touring cars generally were denoted by an open body seating four or more people. Identified by the triangle logo on the grill and the number of passengers seated in it, the car below appears to be a 1918 Hudson Super Six Seven Passenger Touring. The Hudson and Oldsmobile were sold at Reed Brothers from roughly 1917 through 1923.
Anybody for a demonstration drive? Photo by Lewis Reed
Vehicles required much higher road clearances than modern cars due to the poor state of roads and tracks, hence the large diameter skinny tires of the day which were effective at cutting through mud to reach more solid ground.
Early touring car with its top down. The folded top behind passengers was known as the “fan” when in the down position. Photo by Lewis Reed
The popularity of the touring car began to wane in the 1920s when cars with enclosed passenger compartments (i.e. fixed steel roofs) became more affordable, and began to consistently out-sell the open cars.
Early touring car. Photo by Lewis Reed
The touring car body style was popular in the early 20th century, being a larger alternative to the two-seat roadster. The photo below was taken in 1915 by Lewis Reed in front of the original Rockville Garage. Old St Mary’s Church is in the background. Note the unpaved dirt road on Veirs Mill Road. Rockville Garage was a distributor of Fisk Tires until circa 1918, when they replaced it with the Firestone brand. The car appears to be a 1916 Studebaker Roadster. The roadster was a sportier style of vehicle, usually a two-seater with a convertible canopy roof. Many manufacturers offered roadster versions of their larger touring car models.
This photo was taken by Lewis Reed across from Reed Brothers Dodge, circa 1915. Old St Mary’s Church is in the background. Photo by Lewis Reed.
Ever want to see how sausage is made? Well, okay – maybe not… but this interesting photo taken by Lewis Reed some 100 plus years ago allows you to see how 18 men managed to cram themselves into a 1910-1911 Pierce Arrow Model 48 7-Passenger Touring. Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company in Buffalo, New York, produced some of the finest automobiles made and was one of the most popular high-quality cars of the time.
Photo by Lewis Reed
The automobile has affected this country more than any other invention of its time. Without automobiles, life as we know it would not be the same, and the changes that they have brought can be seen in every aspect of our lives.
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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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