Who Gets This? Good as New 1931 Harley Davidson Only $100!
Montgomery County Sentinel, Feb 2, 1933
Lewis Reed, an avid motorcycle enthusiast, also acquired and sold Harley-Davidson Motorcycles at his dealership. Between 1915 and 1950, Reed Brothers Dodge sold more than just cars. In addition to automobiles, the dealership also sold a wide variety of vehicles such as farm tractors, delivery trucks, firetrucks, school buses, and apparently, motorcycles.
Rockville’s Park Avenue Motorcycle Club, 1912
At the turn of the century, before cars were even around, Lewis and Edgar Reed, along with brother-in-law Bernard Hanshew, began their riding adventures with a group of friends from the Park Avenue community in Rockville in the early 1900s.
First motorcycle club in Rockville, Maryland. One Harley Davidson, one Indian, and Three Excelsior motorcycles on Park Avenue, 1912. Lewis Reed, far left.
Early motorcyclists were often pictured in riding groups. From its beginnings, motorcycling developed very much as a social activity. Gentlemen of the day often used it to spice up their sunny weekends and impress ladies.
On Park Avenue, ca. 1912. L-R: “Happy” Hicks, Lewis and Edgar Reed, Frank Higgins, and Alvin Luctor.
Montgomery County Sentinel. September 29, 1955, Centennial Edition
Lewis Reed on his Harley Davidson circa 1915 somewhere outside Frederick, Maryland.
Adventurers, enthusiasts, friends, and family…these are the pioneers of Montgomery County who made riding a social pastime, which has carried on in motorcycle travel today.
Montgomery County’s Trolley Era 1900-1935
Trolleys existed in American cities before the Civil War, but a line did not connect Washington, DC to Rockville, Maryland, until 1900. Lewis Reed had the foresight to aim his camera at early trolley cars, providing rare glimpses of these unique vehicles, as well as views of Montgomery County’s rapidly changing landscapes in the early 20th century.
From the “Washington Star,” regarding the Rockville cars:
The cars do not differ materially from those found on other lines – except no place to hitch horses …. The interior of the car is fitted up with mahogany …seats with springs are upholstered in slate-colored plush.
Trolleys were at home both in the open countryside and in city streets, mingled with pedestrians, cyclists, and horse-drawn vehicles. This scene, taken by Lewis Reed in Baltimore in 1913, shows the trolley in its more typical urban habitat.
Trolley cars played a big part in early county travel. From 1900 to 1935, street cars plied the track from the Washington terminus at Wisconsin and M Streets, NW, up Wisconsin and then Old Georgetown Road, over a steel trestle just before the cars approached Georgetown Prep, through dense woods at Montrose and onto the Rockville Pike, through Rockville on Montgomery Avenue, to Laird Street, and back again. The cars could be driven from either end. In 1929, W&R ran 24 trips a day between 6:30 a.m. and 12:30 a.m. to connect Rockville and Washington. Major stops along the line included Georgetown, Alta Vista, Bethesda, Montrose, Halpine, the Fairgrounds, Courthouse Square, and Chestnut Lodge. Six switching stations and side tracks enabled street cars to pass as they went in different directions. As automobiles and buses rose in popularity and availability, trolleys began their descent into the history books and by 1935, they were pretty much gone from Montgomery County.
Below is a collection of photographs taken by Lewis Reed that shows what the old trolley cars looked like, highlighting what riding the trolley car was like in the early 1900s. From wood-paneled exteriors with ceiling fans to advertisements, here’s a nostalgic look back at Montgomery County’s Trolley era through the lens of Lewis Reed. (click on photos to enlarge)
Western Avenue car barn for the streetcars that served the Georgetown-Tenelytown-Bethesda-Rockville line. Photo by Lewis Reed
A car barn is the streetcar equivalent of a garage for buses. It’s a covered facility in which streetcars were stored overnight, cleaned and given light repairs before the next day’s run. The car barn for the trolleys at the time was the second Western Avenue car barn for the streetcars that served the Georgetown-Tenelytown-Bethesda-Rockville line. It was located at on west side of Wisconsin at between Harrison and Jennifer. It was demolished and later replaced by a purpose-built bus garage which is still in use by WMATA. The National Capital Trolley Museum was instrumental in helping to identify the car barn in the photo above.
Leroy King described the street car below as one of Washington Railway’s majestic “Rockville” cars, at 4 switch in 1908. Note multiple unit jumper box under center front window.
Passengers board car #596 heading to Rockville in 1908. These distinctively styled cars, popularly known as ‘Rockville’ cars, were also used on Washington Railway’s Maryland line. Photo by Lewis Reed, 1908
Traveling in snow was sometimes hazardous to trolley cars, as evidenced by the trolley pictured below which derailed the train tracks and plowed into a telephone pole at Montrose Road and Rockville Pike. Lewis Reed was there to capture the accident from two different perspectives using a five-by-four box camera which produced images on a glass plate.
In populated areas, street cars kept speeds to 12 mph (6 mph at intersections), but in open country they could get up to 40 mph.
Derailed trolley at Montrose Road and Rockville Pike. Photo by Lewis Reed
Derailed trolley through dense woods at Montrose Road and Rockville Pike. Photo by Lewis Reed
Rockville Trolley Car #592. Photo by Lewis Reed
A motorman and conductor on a Georgetown trolley car. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1908
Note the “cow catcher” in the front, and the multiple unit jumper box under the center front window. Each car had a two-man crew (a conductor and a motorman) one to operate the car and the other to collect fares.
Two carmen aboard the “Georgetown Only” trolley car. Photo by Lewis Reed
Crew and passengers pose near a Rockville car. Photo by Lewis Reed
Trolley heading south after diverging from Rockville Pike. Photo by Lewis Reed, 1910
In the photo above c. 1910, a trolley (at center) heads south from Rockville toward Tenallytown (as it was spelled then) through open farmland. The view appears to be looking north and shows the area south of where Montrose Road intersects with Rockville Pike. The Pike is the white strip running diagonally behind the trolley car. To the left of the Pike is the William Scherrer farm. The Curtain farm is near the white buildings to the left of the Trolley line. The building in the foreground is the garage for the Villa Roma hotel and restaurant. The elevated vantage point, possibly from an adjacent rooftop or the roof of a barn, affords an excellent view of the rural countryside.
This photo, c. 1911, captures the trolley tracks on Rockville Pike south of Sherrer Farm. Note that one of the young men is holding a bicycle. Photo by Lewis Reed
The photograph below was featured on PBS’s “The American Experience” documentary, “The Great War” that premiered on April 10, 2017 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into World War I.
Interior of 1920’s Rockville trolley car. Photo taken by Lewis Reed
Panels for advertising line the edge of the ceiling on both sides of the trolley. Instead of AC, the interiors were cooled with wooden ceiling fans.
Rare peak of the inside of a 1920’s trolley car and passengers featured in PBS documentary “The Great War”. Photo taken by Lewis Reed
The rise and decline of trolleys and street railways is another example of the inevitability of change. Now there are no street car lines in Montgomery County and all the car barns and charming little waiting stations have been razed.
In March 1965, ground was broken for construction of the Trolley Museum in Wheaton, Maryland. Built with donated funds, materials and labor, it is run by volunteers under the aegis of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
Abandoned trolley tracks off MacArthur Boulevard, 100 years after Lewis Reed’s time. [Photo by Sue Houser]
Rockville Trolley Line 1900-1935 – Peerless Rockville 2002
Sources: Rockville Pike History – City of Rockville
History of the Street Car Lines of Montgomery County
Peerless Rockville
Then and Now: Commander Hotel Ocean City MD 1930
Few hotels in Ocean City can celebrate continually trading for over 90 years. The family owners can trace their local history back over 200 years. There have been many changes in the world of travel at that time, but The Commander’s beachfront boardwalk location remains as special today as it was on the day it all began.
Commander Hotel (THEN): The Commander Hotel first opened on Memorial Day in 1930, offering 62 rooms, a full American Plan dining room, and a kitchen equipped with wood-burning stoves. The hotel featured the city’s first elevator, in-room telephone service, and both ocean and boardwalk-facing front porch with rocking chairs. During the World War II era, the hotel welcomed doctors, lawyers, and executives. Each room was equipped with blackout curtains for use at night, which protected the windows from enemy shelling from offshore submarines.
Commander Hotel on the boardwalk at Ocean City, Maryland. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1930
Commander Hotel (NOW): The same view today. The Commander Hotel was, for a long time, the northernmost hotel on the Boardwalk. Its dining room was famous and the Commander outranked many other hotels, enjoying “elite” status. The facility underwent a two-stage renovation in 1979, and in 1992 the cabanas near the pool were rebuilt. The original structure was razed in 1997 and the current eight-story Commander was constructed on the 14th Street site the following year.
Commander Hotel today
Driving Into the 20th Century
Before 1900, there weren’t any traffic laws in regular use pertaining to automobiles other than certain regulations for the use of horse-drawn wagons and locomotives. The rise of the automobile changed all that. Local governments attempted to develop signage and laws to deal with this massive increase in the use of mechanized vehicles.
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 Lewis Reed’s daughter, Mary Jane. Photo by Lewis Reed
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 25 miles an hour.
You didn’t always need a license to drive. In fact, in the beginning of the 20th century, driver’s licenses didn’t even exist. Anyone could operate a vehicle, even if they had no idea what they were doing. As the number of automobiles increased, states slowly began to require people to be licensed in order to drive, with Maryland beginning in 1910.
New license and speed limit laws in effect regarding automobile use for the state of Maryland. Montgomery County Sentinel, May 6, 1910.
Horses were skittish of the loud motors, and those who drove cars often had little training on how to operate them safely–both situations caused unprecedented accidents. Reed Brothers Dodge salesmen at the time often had to teach their customers how to drive the automobiles they had just purchased. “Speed limits” were a new concept, as individually-controlled vehicles capable of speeds much faster than a horse were previously non-existent.
Sign on this bridge reads “$10 fine for driving faster than a walk.” Photo by Lewis Reed, c. 1910
The photograph above evokes a sense of nostalgia for slower-paced times. Literally slower: the sign over the bridge entrance reads “$10 fine for driving faster than a walk.” That’s equivalent to about $300 in today’s money.
From “Rules of the Road,” written by William P. Eno in 1903:
The mandatory registration of automobiles was one of the first traffic regulations in the United States. New York became the role model in 1901 by being the first state to require that automobile owners register their vehicles. By 1920, license plates were mandatory in all states. It took longer for the states to require a driver’s license. In 1935, there were just 39 states that issued the licenses and only a few tested applicants. Before the 1930s, most drivers received their training from automobile salesmen, nonprofit organizations such as the YMCA, family members and friends.
There was a good reason to discourage speeding in the first decades of the 1900s, as there were no stop signs, traffic lights, lane lines, brake lights, driver’s licenses, or posted speed limits, to name only a few modern safety measures. Drinking and driving? Not that big a deal. Poorly maintained roads, untrained and inexperienced drivers, and potential speeds approaching 40 mph created the perfect catalyst for horrific accidents. The photograph below illustrates how fragile those early cars were.
Early 20th century automobile accident. Photo by Lewis Reed
Trained as a chauffeur early in his life, Lewis Reed later leveraged his knowledge of automobiles into founding one of the longest-lived and most successful car dealerships in the state of Maryland.
Then & Now: Emmanuel Episcopal Church (Cumberland, Maryland) 1912
Cumberland is known as the “Queen City of the Alleganys.” The National Road, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal pass through the town, which was once an Ohio Company outpost and the westernmost part of the British Empire in North America. Cumberland has changed from a trading site to a manufacturing locality, to a tourist haven over many generations.
For this post, I have used one of Lewis Reed’s original photographs for “then” and a google stock image for “now”. Taken over 113 years apart, you can see how the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, Maryland looks almost the same from over a century ago.
Emmanuel Episcopal Church (THEN): The Emmanuel Episcopal Church of Cumberland, Maryland in Cumberland’s Historic District is built on the foundations of Fort Cumberland, where George Washington began his military career. Although the Emmanuel parish dates from 1803, the cornerstone of the current native sandstone building was laid in 1849 and completed in 1851.
Standing at the eastern end of the Washington Street Historic District, it is one of Maryland’s examples of early Gothic Revival architecture. The church is on the former site of Fort Cumberland, and earthwork tunnels remaining from the fort run under the church. The church was constructed around 1850 and designed by Philadelphia architect John Notman.
Emmanuel Episcopal Church Cumberland, 1912. Photo by Lewis Reed
Emmanuel Episcopal Church (NOW): Emmanuel Episcopal Church is active and continues to service the city of Cumberland. Emmanuel Church is part of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. The church allows self-guided tours of the stained glass; the church also offers guided tours of the tunnels. Make contact with the church in order to arrange a tour. Emmanuel Episcopal Church is part of the Washington Street Historic District, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Emmanuel Episcopal Church Cumberland today. Google image.
Source: Wikipedia
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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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