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Rockville, Maryland

Rockville Gallery of Home Photos

About Rockville History:

Situated in the Piedmont region and crossed by three creeks (Rock Creek, Cabin John Creek, and Watts Branch), Rockville provided an excellent refuge for semi-nomadic Native Americans as early as 8000 BC. By the first millennium BC, a few of these groups had settled down into year-round agricultural communities that exploited the native flora, including sunflowers and marsh elder. By 1200 AD, these early groups (dubbed Montgomery Indians by later archaeologists) were increasingly drawn into conflict with the Senecas and Susquehannocks who had migrated south from Pennsylvania and New York. Within the present-day boundaries of the city, six prehistoric sites have been uncovered and documented, and borne artifacts several thousand years old. By the year 1700, under pressure from European colonists, the majority of these original inhabitants had been driven away.

The first land patents in the Rockville area were obtained by Arthur Nelson between 1717 and 1735. Within three decades, the first permanent buildings in what would become the center of Rockville were established on this land. Still a part of Prince George's County at this time, the growth of Daniel Dulaney's Frederick Town prompted the separation of the western portion of the county, including Rockville, into Frederick County in 1748.

Being a small, unincorporated town, early Rockville was known by a variety of names, including Owen's Ordinary, Hungerford's Tavern, Daley's Tavern. The first recorded mention of the settlement which would later become known as Rockville dates to the Braddock Expedition in 1755. On April 14, one of the approximately two thousand men who were accompanying General Edward Braddock through wrote the following: "we marched to Larance Owings or Owings Ordinary, a Single House, it being 18 miles and very dirty." Owen's Ordinary was a small rest stop on Rock Creek Main Road (later the Rockville Pike), which stretched from George Town to Frederick Town, and was then one of the largest thoroughfares in the colony of Maryland.

On September 6, 1776, the Maryland Constitutional Convention agreed to a proposal introduced by Dr. Thomas Sprigg Wootton wherein Frederick County, the largest and most populous county in the Maryland, would be divided into three smaller units. The southern portion of the county, of which Rockville was a part, was named Montgomery County. The most populous and prosperous urban center in this new county was George Town, but its location at the far southern edge rendered it worthless as a seat of local government. Rockville, a small, but centrally located and well traveled town, was chosen as the seat of the county's government. Thereafter, the village was referred to by all as Montgomery Court House.

In 1784, William Prather Williams, a local landowner, hired a surveyor to lay out much of the town. In his honor, many took to calling the town Williamsburgh. In practice, however, Williamsburgh and Montgomery Court House were used interchangeably. On July 16, 1803, when the area was officially entered into the county land records, however, the name used was "Rockville," believed to be derived from Rock Creek. Nevertheless, the name Montgomery Court House continued to appear on maps and other documents through the 1820s.

By petition of Rockville's citizens, the Maryland General Assembly incorporated the village on March 10, 1860. During the American Civil War, General George B. McClellan stayed at the Beall Dawson house in 1862. In addition, General J.E.B. Stuart and an army of 8,000 Confederate cavalrymen marched through and occupied Rockville on June 28, 1863 while on their way to Gettysburg and stayed at the Prettyman house. Jubal Anderson Early had also crossed through Maryland, on his way to and from his attack on Washington.

In 1873, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad arrived, making Rockville easily accessible from Washington, D.C. In July 1891, the Tenallytown and Rockville Railway Company inaugurated Rockville's first trolley service connecting to the Georgetown and Tenallytown Railway terminus at Western Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue. This provided service from Georgetown to Rockville, connecting Rockville to Washington, D.C. by trolley. Trolley service operated for four decades, until, eclipsed by the growing popularity of the automobile, service was halted in August 1935. The Blue Ridge Transportation Company provided bus service for Rockville and Montgomery County from 1924 through 1955. After 1955, Rockville would not see a concerted effort to develop a public transportation infrastructure until the 1970s, when the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) began work to extend the Washington Metro into Rockville and extended Metrobus service into Montgomery County. The Rockville station of Washington Metro was opened on December 15, 1984. Metrobus service was supplemented by Montgomery County's own Ride On bus service starting in 1979.

From the 1960s, Rockville's town center, formerly one of the area's commercial centers, suffered from a period of decline. Attempts to revitalize interest in the region culminated in the unsuccessful Rockville Mall which failed to attract either major retailers or customers, and was demolished in 1994. Although efforts to restore the town center continue, the majority of the city's economic activity has since relocated along Rockville Pike (MD Route 355/Wisconsin Avenue). In 2004, Rockville Mayor Larry Giammo announced plans to renovate the Rockville Town Center, including building new stores and housing and relocating the city's library. The city is closely associated with the neighboring towns of Kensington and the unincorporated census-designated place, North Bethesda. The Music Center at Strathmore, an arts and theater center, opened in February 2005 in the latter of these two areas and is presently the second home of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The United States Public Health Service headquarters office buildings are in South Rockville.

The grave site of F. Scott Fitzgerald is located at St. Mary's Church, in the center of Rockville, and there is a small theater next to Glenview Mansion in the Civic Center Park named after him. The alternative rock band R.E.M. wrote and performed a song about Rockville, called "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville," that appears on the album Reckoning.