Montgomery County Fairgrounds in the Snow, ca. 1910
Montgomery County Fairgrounds. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1910
Montgomery County Fairgrounds Chicken House. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1910
These snowy images of the Montgomery County Fair were taken by Lewis Reed, ca. 1910. From 1846-1932, the Montgomery County Fair took place in Rockville with competitions, entertainment, and food that attracted people from Montgomery County and Washington, DC.
Halpine / Lenovitz Store at 1600 Rockville Pike, 1910
Halpine / Lenovitz General Store at Rockville Pike and Halpine Road, 1910. Photo taken by Lewis Reed.
The Halpine Store, also known as the Lenovitz General Store, was built on Rockville Pike in 1898, taking advantage of the prime location on the trolley and railroad lines and the Pike. The store sold food, gasoline and other items to locals and Pike travelers. There is a young African American man standing in front of the store. Note the telephone or telegraph poles, and the trolley tracks paralleling the road. The nearby Halpine railroad station also brought customers to the area, and the store became the social/community gathering place for the Halpine area.
The proprietors, Benjamin and Anna Lenovitz, lived on the second floor. The building burned in 1923 and a new fire-resistant brick building was rebuilt in its place. This building, at 1600 Rockville Pike, became a Radio Shack, selling computers and electronics.
Source: Maryland Historical Trust
Huckleberry Finn?
An adult Huckleberry Finn look-alike poses at Pope’s Creek, Maryland on the Potomac River. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. early 1900s.
Pope’s Creek 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. Lewis Reed was an avid fisherman and frequently fished and camped at Pope’s Creek with friends and family.
Near here, John Wilkes Booth was rowed across the river, a week after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
Martin Thompson House on Darnestown Road, 1907
Route 28, Darnestown Road Circa 1907 – Martin Thompson House, owned by Lewis Reed’s maternal grandfather. Photo by Lewis Reed.
The home in the photo was owned by James Martin Thompson (1825–1902), Lewis Reed’s maternal grandfather. It was then called “Pleasant Hills”, which was located just opposite of the Thomas Kelly farm. In the early days, it was common practice for a family to give a name to their property. The house was accessed from Darnestown Road by a long tree-lined drive.
Route 28, in Darnestown is depicted in this photo before paving. What is now Route 28 is one of the earliest roads in the county, and was one of the main ways farmers in Poolesville, Darnestown, Dickerson, and Barnesville reached the courthouse in Rockville. Darnestown Road has existed since before the Civil war, and it remained a mud path for years into the automobile age.
Most houses in the Darnestown “Pleasant Hills” area were not very large and most were made of wood rather than brick. According to the 1860 Federal Census, Martin Thompson’s occupations were listed as Carpenter and Farmer living in Darnestown, Montgomery County, Maryland.
This photograph won an honorable mention in a contest sponsored by Rotary International for Lewis Reed.
Rockville B&O Railroad Station, Early 1900s
Rockville B&O Train Station early 1900s. On the left, a horse-drawn carriage has just left the station. Photo by Lewis Reed
Built in 1873, the station was one of several stops along the route between Washington’s Union Station and Point of Rocks where the Metropolitan Branch joined the B&O Main Line of the railroad. Along the route of the railroad were twenty-six stations. In the early days people came to the stations on foot, on horseback, in buggies. Some wives took their commuting husbands to the station in the buggy in the morning and then met the train as it came through in the evening.
Lewis Reed using a tripod and five-by-four box camera to shoot photos of an arriving B&O train.
While the station helped to spur Rockville’s early growth, development pressures would later threaten its existence. In the mid-1970s Metro’s original plans for the Rockville Metro Station and the final phase of construction on the Red Line called for the demolition of the B&O Station which by then was disused and in disrepair. However, Peerless Rockville, then only one year old, brought the station’s plight to the attention of the City and Metro, ultimately negotiating a compromise—the station and its freight house would not be demolished, but instead would be relocated so that a new tenant could be found to occupy the historic buildings, while allowing the Metro construction to continue as planned.
In 1981, the 400-ton station carefully was lifted off of its foundation, moved approximately 30 feet to the south, and reoriented 180 degrees so that the train platform which originally faced the tracks now faced Church Street and the Wire Hardware Store.
Relocating the 400-ton Passenger Station, 1981. Photograph by John Spano via Peerless Rockville
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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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