Naval Medical Center

Library of Congress, Horydczak Collection

Bethesda, an unincorporated suburban community with an urban center, is located in Montgomery County, northwest of Washington, D.C. Bethesda is home to the National Institutes of Health and the National Naval Medical Center. The area takes its name from the Presbyterian Bethesda Meeting House, first built in 1820 on the toll pike road newly constructed between Georgetown and Frederick.

South of the Presbyterian Church, the toll pike (now Rockville Pike and Wisconsin Avenue) intersected with the old Indian trails and private roads, today’s Old Georgetown Road and East-West Highway. This intersection, still called Five Points by some older Bethesda residents, became a business center for the area’s tobacco farmers. In the early twentieth century, Five Points had a post office and general store, blacksmith shop, bank, and one of the first automobile fueling stations in Maryland. Today, it is a thriving downtown area centered around a busy station on the Washington Metro Red Line.

In 2000, the United States Census Bureau identified Bethesda as a “census-designated place” for the purpose of gathering statistical information. According to the Census Bureau designation, Bethesda covers an area of 13.2 miles (34.2 kilometers), with its center located at 38°59' North, 77°7' West. In 2000, this area had a residential population of 55,277, 81.8% white, with black, Hispanic, and Asian minorities.

The Bethesda area includes several incorporated towns, such as Somerset, Chevy Chase, Friendship Heights, and Glen Echo. Bethesda residents are well educated, with more than three-quarters holding a bachelor’s degree and nearly half holding graduate or professional degrees. They have significantly higher household incomes and real estate values than the Maryland state average.

Historic Sites
Many designated historic sites in Bethesda date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the Bethesda Meeting House, which burned down in a fire in 1846. In 1850, a new church was built in its place. Bethesda’s growth from a farming to an urbanized area occurred slowly, until modern transportation made it possible to commute to and from Washington, D.C. By 1890, the Georgetown and Tennallytown Electric Railway had run a trolley line from the district to a new amusement park in the Alta Vista area of Bethesda. Next, enterprising Bethesda landowners subdivided their estates to build residential developments for commuters.

Industry
The area began to grow rapidly in the 1930s, when the federal government built the first of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Naval Hospital along Rockville Pike. The many employees of these medical centers swelled the resident population of Bethesda. Today, NIH has more than 18,000 employees and its own Metro Red Line station stop.

Bethesda’s thriving new urban center now has hundreds of restaurants and retail businesses as well as live theatres, movie theatres and art galleries, employing 43,000 people. However, a remnant of the older rural Bethesda still occupies a bit of prime downtown real estate near the old Five Points: the Montgomery Farm Woman’s Cooperative Market, which first opened in 1932 as a farm produce market and farm assistance organization, still sells farm produce and collectibles to contemporary urban Bethesda residents and workers.

Holman, Doree G. Old Bethesda. Bethesda Not So Old. Gaithersburg, Md.: Franklin Press, 1956.

Offutt, William M. Bethesda: A Social History. Bethesda, Md.: The Innovation Game, 1995.