Two Years, 77 Posts & Thank You
Today marks the two-year anniversary of this blog. It’s been an honor to share the history of Reed Brothers Dodge – whether you’ve read our blog, followed us on Twitter, or “liked” us on Facebook. I would like to thank those mentioned below, and many others, for their kind words and the visibility they have provided.
To help review the past year I thought I’d search around on the Internet and see what others have been saying about us.
Included among the posts on our Facebook page:
“… you have a lot of Rockville History on that site!!!!”
Other mentions online and in print:
- Hemmings Daily Blog Four-Links – NYC cop car show, Reed Brothers Dodge history, coachbuilder Mark Nugent, microcars in the Pacific Northwest – posted a photo of of Reed Brothers Dodge and blogged about us. Photo caption:
“Reed Brothers Dodge has been in business in Rockville, Maryland, since 1915, almost as long as Dodge has been around. Unlike most new car dealerships, though, Reed Brothers cares enough about its heritage to have put together a nice website with plenty of vintage photos and history of the dealership.”
Responses to “Four-Links – NYC cop car show, Reed Brothers Dodge history, coachbuilder Mark Nugent, microcars in the Pacific Northwest”
“In the same week where we’re all extremely concerned for Detroit’s historic legacy, I can’t be the only one who felt some comfort…. Comfort that the Reed family valued their dodge dealership’s history enough to hang on to the artifacts and share it all with us. I’m long from my Maryland roots, being posted to London (and still here and happy), and so there was an additional wee bit of poignancy for me and the family.”
“With regard to the Dodge dealership and its 90 year history, it’s too bad that an institution like that can be simply erased by the stroke of a pen. The loss to the people who depended on it for their livelihood and the loss to the community itself is so often never recovered.”
“The Reed Brothers site is about 10 times better than many operating car dealer websites-certainly a sad ending.”
- C Bodies Only Forum – the home for C-Body Platform Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth Automobile Owners. – Reed Brothers Dodge, Rockville, Md.
“There is a remarkable webpage devoted to the history of Reed Brothers Dodge, a dealership in Rockville, Md. that was a Dodge dealer from the very early days until 2009. Ultimately it was a sad story, but the former owners maintained an incredible archive of the family business. Click on the links in the right sidebar titled “Site Navigation” for some incredible pictures.”
“That’s a nice story. Thanks for sharing. That place is near Washington D.C., I’ll have to cruise past and take a picture next time I’m in the area.”
“I love the historical history too Bob. Seriously that is some pretty neat history.”
- The Forward Look Network – The World’s Largest Source of 1955 – 1961 Mopar Info – posted two photos of Reed Brothers Dodge dealership from the 1950s under the “Forwardlooks in old pictures/postcards“
- Classic Mopar Forum.com
Classic Mopar Forum.com
- HudsonJet.net History of Hudson Dealerships: The dealership section is not only dedicated to the dealerships of the Jet years, but all known Hudson dealerships. The site posted a photograph of Rockville Garage. “In business from 1915 thru at least 2013, they sold Hudson from 1917 thru 1921.”
- Just A Car Guy Blog “Dodge, it’s history and 100th year anniversary are here… and a family owned dealership, (3rd generation) owner is blogging about it!”
- The Old Motor Car, online vintage automobile magazine featured a 2-Part series covering the history of Reed Brothers Dodge.
The Reed Brothers – Selling Dodge’s for Ninety-Four Years, Part I
The Reed Brothers – Selling Dodge’s for Ninety-Four Years, Part II
- Norris-Banonis.com I was delighted to provide Kevin Banonis of Norris-Banonis Group with two photographs that will go into the month of May 2015 calendar which features a 1952 Dodge Coronet. One photo is of the 1936 Reed Brothers Dodge canopied Gulf Gas Station and the second photo is of the original 1915 Rockville Garage. Below is a rough draft of what the product will look like. It may change a tiny bit between now and press time but this is pretty much how the finished product will look for the month of May 2015. The printed calendar will be high resolution and will be available for purchase on their website.
And then there’s Twitter…
Reed Brothers received numerous re-tweets and mentions on Twitter,
@reedbrothers welcome, fantastic story about your family dealership, thanks for sharing.
@reedbrothers I am sorry the Chrysler Corporation treated your dealership so unfairly in recent years. I am a local resident of Rockville.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank YOU for stopping by. I appreciate your patronage, whether it be via our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or other social media.
Dodge Brothers March
Sing a song of old Detroit, for she’s the flashing, dashing pioneer of motor glory …
Dedicated by Victor Herbert to the Late Mr. Horace E. Dodge in Respectful Appreciation of His Generous Efforts Towards the Advancement of American Music; Published Especially for Dodge Brothers.
I love this march and the history behind it — it is such a typical success story of the early part of the 20th century. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) owes much of its prestige to half of the auto-building Dodge Brothers, John and Horace. It was Horace, the more mechanically-inclined of the two — and a decent enough amateur musician, by all accounts — that helped pay for a permanent conductor hired in 1918 to give the symphony world-class status. More importantly, he contributed $150,000 toward the cost of a new concert hall and led the successful fund-raising campaign for the building. Detroit’s Orchestra Hall, which opened in October 1919.
The Symphony was what finally smoothed the way into Detroit high society for Horace. Prior to that, the brothers were repeatedly blackballed — they were hard-drinking brawlers who didn’t much care what other people thought of them. (Their first major success was in manufacturing parts for Henry Ford’s assembly line. John Dodge was asked why the brothers abandoned that lucrative work to make their own cars. “Think of all those Ford owners who will someday want an automobile,” he snarked.) By the time the brothers suddenly died in 1920 — both from complications of the influenza then raging world-wide, although Horace’s condition was precipitously undermined by John’s death—such was their renown that none other than Victor Herbert paid tribute with “The Dodge Brothers March.”
The Dodge Brothers company distributed both the sheet music and, according to one source, 100,000 recordings of the piece.
Below are the lyrics and sound recording (without voice) of the march:
DODGE BROTHERS MARCH LYRICS
From the hills of San Jose San Jose
To the lights of gay Broadway gay Broadway
Sing a song of old Detroit
For she’s the flashing dashing pioneer of motor glory
Born of thunder steel and flame
All the world now hails her name hails her name
Here’s to Dodge and old Detroit
We pledge the glory of their fame
From the hills of San Jose San Jose
To the lights of gay Broadway gay Broadway
Sing a song of old Detroit
For she’s the flashing dashing pioneer of motor glory
Born of thunder steel and flame
All the world now hails her name hails her name
Here’s to Dodge and old Detroit
We pledge the glory of their fame
What better way to tap into the soul of an era than through music?
References:
The Dodge Brothers: The Men, The Motor Cars, And The Legacy
Johns Hopkins University, Levy Sheet Music Collection, Box 075, Item 028
The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922
1976 Showroom & Car Lot
A 1976 Dodge Charger displayed on showroom floor
I found these two gems while looking through some of my old photo albums. The top photo shows what appears to be a 1976 Dodge Charger displayed on the showroom floor at Reed Brothers. Usually, the flashiest of the new models, spit-shined to perfection, would be displayed inside the showroom. Banners touting the new models were also strung up in the showroom.
In the second photo, nothing screams 1970s like the line of beige and baby blue cars all lined up in rows on the side lot. Across the road is the big barn that said, “MILK FOR THOMPSON’S DAIRY” on the field that is now the new urban development known as King Farm. I remember Lawson King’s dairy cows. Lots of them! They used to graze in the fields just a few feet from the roadway right across the road. At its peak, King Farm was the largest milk producer in the area and had been in agricultural use for nearly 75 years before it was approved for development in 1996.
Cars lined up awaiting prospective buyers
Lewis Reed Photos: Remembering Trolley Cars of Rockville’s Past
This special post is a collection of early trolley car photos that were taken by Lewis Reed in the early 20th century. I wanted to share them because they offer a visual history of a part of Rockville’s transportation past.
With photography for a hobby, one that began even before automobiles were around, Lewis Reed had amassed a large library of photographs of buildings, farm carts drawn by oxen, trolley cars, and other historic spots in Maryland, Washington, DC and Virginia. Many of his early photographs are now part of the Montgomery County Historical Society photo archives.
Below are some vintage (circa early 1900s) trolley car photographs from Lewis Reed’s collection (click on photos to enlarge):
Lewis Reed took this photo of a trolley bound for Rockville with a five-by-four box camera which produced an image on a glass plate. Note the cow catcher on the front of the trolley.
The route of the Rockville trolley car started at the Washington terminus at Wisconsin and M streets in Northwest D.C., went up through Rockville along Rockville Pike and Montgomery Avenue to Laird Street and back again. From 1900 – 1935, the trolley cars went past Reed Brothers Dodge as they traveled up Rockville Pike.
1915 – Rockville Garage first gas station – a single pump. View looking West on Main Street of Rockville showing an early Trolley car. Also in the background is the old St Mary’s Cemetery.
Late 1920′s. Note the unpaved dirt road on Rockville Pike and trolley tracks running past Reed Brothers Dodge
Trolley Wreck – Montrose Rd & Rt 355
Trolley Wreck – Montrose Rd & 355
Georgetown Trolley Car
Trolley Car Interior and Passengers
Western Avenue car barn for the streetcars that served the Georgetown-Tenelytown-Bethesda-Rockville line
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 this car barn.
Map of the Rockville Trolley Line 1900-1935 – Peerless Rockville
Meet Our Founder: Lewis Reed
Lewis Reed
Lewis Reed was born in Darnestown, Maryland on November 25, 1887 and attended school in Montgomery County. He went to work for the fore-runner of the IBM Corporation at about the time it was founded in 1913. In 1915, he founded Reed Brothers Dodge. In 1920, he married the former Ethlene Thomas of Frederick County and moved to Gaithersburg. He had one daughter, Mary Jane, who later married Ernest Lee Gartner in 1944.
Before becoming interested in automobiles, Lewis Reed was one of the original employees of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, a Georgetown-based manufacturing firm that eventually became International Business Machines, Inc. He received his training at the Pierce Arrow factory at Buffalo, New York, the Dodge and Hudson factories at Detroit and the Washington Auto College. Pierce-Arrow was once one of the most recognized and respected names in the automobile industry. For 38 years, the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company in Buffalo, New York, produced some of the finest automobiles made.
Lewis Reed was just a young man when he started selling cars built by brothers Horace and John Dodge in Detroit
When World War I broke out, Lewis Reed along with many other patriotic men joined the war effort. He did his bit in World War I by working at the Navy Yard in Washington DC as a torpedo tester.
Lewis Reed (left) as Chauffeur with unidentified family circa 1914
Prior to World War I, Lewis Reed’s love of automobiles led him to becoming a chauffeur. Chauffeurs were trained to be proficient with their driving skills, but they also had to keep the luxury automobiles in tip top shape which is where his mechanic training would have come into play.
Lewis Reed was a member of the Gaithersburg Grace Methodist Church where he served as a member and Chairman of the Board of Stewards, a lay leader and President of the Men’s Bible Class.
He was also a charter member and Past President (Feb.1933 – Feb. 1937) of the Gaithersburg – Washington Grove Volunteer Fire Department and a member of the advisory board of the Rockville branch of the First National Bank of Maryland.
Lewis Reed belonged to the Masonic Lodge of Rockville, the Pentalph Chapter of the Eastern Star and the Rockville Rotary Club. He was a Rotarian for 34 years and also had served as President of that group.
Lewis Reed Printing Pictures
With photography for a hobby, one that began even before automobiles were around Montgomery County, he had amassed a large library of photographs of buildings, farm carts drawn by oxen, and other historic spots in Montgomery County. Lewis Reed expanded his hobby to include movies, and made them not only of his family, but on his trips to various parts of the world. Many of his photographs are now part of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Historical Society photo archives.
Lewis Reed was not only passionate about automobiles and photography, he also enjoyed riding motorcycles. This is Lewis Reed on his Harley Davidson overlooking the countryside somewhere outside Frederick Maryland circa 1915.
Lewis Reed was a Charter Member and Past President of the Gaithersburg-Washington Grove Volunteer Fire Department. This is a photo of Past Officers of the Gaithersburg-Washington Grove Fire Department. (Lewis Reed far right)
Lewis Reed was a Rotarian for 34 years and had served as President of the Rockville Rotary Club. This is a Rotary get-together held on June 14, 1955. (Lewis Reed, 3rd from right)
The story of how Lewis Reed was chosen for a Dodge Brothers Motor Car franchise is lost, but his legacy continued until 2009 as the oldest Dodge dealership under the same family ownership in Maryland, and one of the oldest in the entire nation.
Books
Related Resources
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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