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.
On the Self-Publishing Horizon … Again!
I’m excited to announce that for the last year or so, I’ve been thinking about self-publishing a photo book specific to my grandfather, Lewis Reed, with a working title of, “Lewis Reed Photograph Collection (1898-1960).” Looking back at photography from the past is a fascinating experience for me, and with a newfound interest in history, the curious part of me wants to learn more: When was the picture taken? Where? What is it? Who’s in it? The majority of his photos are more than 100 years old and many are lacking labels and/or dates, which requires quite a bit of research and a little photo detective work on my part.
With that in mind, I will be frequently spotlighting photographs that may not directly pertain to the history of Reed Brothers Dodge, but will have a lot to do with it’s founder, Lewis Reed. I will not try to be an historian; I will post photos and supply a few paragraphs of context. Many photographic images in this collection have never before been seen publicly in print and will be available in this book for the first time.
I’ve been sitting on this post for a few weeks, timid to hit the ‘publish’ button. Likely because the size of the project is overwhelming and committing to it is a bit daunting (although exciting at the same time). It doesn’t help that as the ambition of my projects and goals increase, so too, can self-doubt. Below is the Draft Table of Contents for the book, which I’m sure will see some revisions as I progress.
Having said that, I will be switching my focus and time to mostly photo identification and researching/writing for the book.
Time to get to work!
Draft Table of Contents
Lewis Reed Shows Off His “Photoshopping” Skills… 100 Years Ago
If you take a look at the state of photography today, such as the advances of digital cameras and the artful image manipulation by Photoshop, it is easy to forget that back in the 1900s photographers couldn’t just go into a computer program and change their images any way they wanted. They did what they could with the tools they had. Double image exposure was one tool Lewis Reed had in his photography tool belt. He was doing crazy things to images and creating humorous effects over 100 years ago. With double exposure technique, you could create certain effects like placing the same person on both sides of a picture simultaneously. Photographs were pieced together in the darkroom from separate photographs.
Below are eight (circa 1920s) photographs from Lewis Reed’s collection that will make you do a double take. No digital manipulation here. (click on photos to enlarge)
A double exposure image of Lewis Reed’s brother, Edgar, seated on both sides of a table.
Lewis Reed standing on both sides of a steamroller
Another double exposure wonderment. Wanna Fight?
Oh No! What on earth are they doing? I don’t know, but this one is epic.
Don’t Shoot! Lewis Reed is standing both front left and front right in this photo
Surrealistic, ghost-like effect of Lewis Reed standing next to a tree in the middle of train track.
More “photoshop” fun. Lewis Reed pushing the same man in baby carriage on both sides of the photo.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane .. no, it’s a man up in a tree!
“In My Merry Oldsmobile” …100 Years Ago
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
One of the things I enjoy doing is looking through all of the old photographs in my grandfather’s albums and trying to figure out who and what they are. I came across these two photographs and recognized the passengers, so thought it would be fun to try and identify the car, so I went on a quest. After spending some time viewing images of four brands of cars of the period with a similar appearance, I found it looks a lot like the two-door, four-passenger 1918 Oldsmobile Club Roadster pictured below. Looks the same to me. What do you think?
Fully restored 1918 Oldsmobile Model 45A Club Roadster – Reference Vehicle
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. Both old photographs show the same two young women posing in them – one is my grandmother, Ethelene Reed, who married Lewis Reed in June 1921, and the other is her sister, Celeste Thomas Brown.
Vehicles from that era are fascinating and are often photographed with equally fascinating surroundings. I wonder what the two dapper young men were repairing on the car in the top photo?
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.
Lewis Reed’s Rockville Garage sold more than just Dodges. During the early years, Reed Brothers represented several franchise nameplates along with Dodge, including Oldsmobile, Hudson and Essex. The Hudson and Oldsmobile were sold at Reed Brothers from roughly 1917 through 1923.
The first advertisement below, distributed by the Oldsmobile Sales Company in the Sunday, June 29, 1919 edition of The Washington Post is the very first ad in which the Rockville Garage appeared. Dealers are listed in fine print at the bottom: note “Rockville Garage, Rockville, Md” which is highlighted in yellow.
1919 Oldsmobile Model 45-B Rockville Garage Ad – The Washington Post – Sunday, June 29, 1919, Washington, District Of Columbia
This is a fun little song recorded in 1909. An Oldsmobile must have been quite the toy when this was recorded. From an old single sided VICTOR RECORD COMPANY 78 rpm record. Enjoy!
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Copyright Notice
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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