Mount Pleasant, Col. Magruder's
house in Gaithersburg

Library of Congress,
Historic American Buildings Record

Gaithersburg (pop 2005 est. 57,698) is located in Montgomery County about five miles northwest of Rockville and 18 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., on the old Frederick Road (Route 355), an original American Indian trail through the county. The town got its name from the Gaither family who had settled on the Frederick Road, where Diamond Avenue crosses it today, and opened a blacksmith shop and community store in the early 1800s. They referred to the settlement as “Log Town,” but when the post office opened it took the name of “Forest Oak” chosen in honor of an old tree near the Gaither home. The tree, which is memorialized as the town’s logo, stood as the town landmark until 1997 when it fell during a storm.

Early History and Religious Roots
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad built its line through town in 1873 and, perhaps to honor Gen. William Lingan Gaither who influenced the B&O’s route decision, they named the station Gaithersburg. The railroad station is still used today for commuter trains to Washington, D.C., with Ride-On buses taking passengers from various points and centers in Gaithersburg to the Shady Grove Metro Station at the edge of the city.

In 1878, due to growth brought by the railroad station, Gaithersburg became an incorporated town. The commercial center of town featured a drugstore, hardware store, and other businesses. The First National Bank of Gaithersburg’s Articles of Association were signed in 1891 by the prominent businessmen of the community, among others, John B. Diamond and Thomas B. Brookes, who gave their names to Diamond and Brooks Avenues.

Churches developed wherever groups of people congregated. One of the earliest churches in Gaithersburg was a Presbyterian Church in the city before 1847, joining Forest Oak Methodist Church; but the Presbyterian congregation dwindled, and they sold their building to Epworth Methodist Church. In 1867, the new Methodist Episcopal Church, or Northern Methodists, formed after the Methodists split during the Civil War. Grace United Methodist, formerly Forest Oak, was the Southern Methodist church, established in 1844. Ascension Church, the Episcopal Church was dedicated in 1882, by a congregation formally organized in 1880. The present Gaithersburg Presbyterian Church was organized in the 1960s as an offshoot of Rockville Presbyterian Church.

Roman Catholics worshipped at St. Rose, founded in 1834. When St. Rose burned in 1883, it was not until St. Martin’s church was built in 1920 that a Roman Catholic Church again functioned in the city. Good Shepherd Lutheran dedicated its first building in June 1969, having met in a room at Gaithersburg Junior High School for the previous five years. Growth in the community led to another congregation in nearby Montgomery Village, called Prince of Peace Lutheran, Gaithersburg--one of the newest and now one of the largest churches in the Washington, D.C., Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) Synod.

Industry
Manufacturing has always been a town mainstay, from a tannery operation in the early federal period to Bowman’s Mill and the cannery in the 1900s. Bowman’s Mill was destroyed in the 1940s by a fire, and the cannery--a remembered place of employment for many old timers, were both situated near the railroad tracks. Today, the cannery facility is a small shopping center featuring Lashof’s Violins and other local businesses.

In 1950, the 100-year old Montgomery County Agricultural Fair moved from Rockville to its present location in Gaithersburg. The developed site hosts fairs and exhibits year round, but none as popular as the Agricultural Fair held each August. Bohrer Park at Summit Hall Farm, on the Frederick Road, offers recreation facilities on a site that in 1864 offered camp grounds to Confederate troops coming through Montgomery County with Gen. Jubal T. Early.

A growth spurt occurred in the community after the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST) selected Gaithersburg for its home in 1960. The first government employee to come to the city, though, worked in the Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory. Built in 1899 by the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Observatory has been in use for 90 years. Following government workers to the city were many more businesses in the technology sector, from IBM in the 1970s to Westat and, more recently, biotechnology firms and government contractors. The Montgomery County Airpark opened in 1959 and still serves as the city’s local airport.

Growth and Population
Gaithersburg grew to a city of ten square miles with a 2000 census population of 52,613--ten times its 1900 numbers. Growth since the 1960s was exponential: in 1960, the population was approximately 3,800 people inhabiting 400 acres. By 1980, the city’s 5,248 acres comprised over 30,000 people, resulting from a wave of apartment and shopping center construction begun about 1960. Gaithersburg includes the planned residential communities of the Kentlands and the growing Asbury Village retirement community, begun in 1926.

Retail and Transportation
The largest shopping center in Gaithersburg is the Lakeforest Mall with over 140 retail shops, dining and service centers, anchored by Hecht’s (soon to be Macy’s), Lord & Taylor, Sears, and JCPenny. There is also large retail development at the Washingtonian Center at Rio and the Market Squares in Kentlands. Restaurants vary from the traditional and long popular Golden Bull--a beef house featuring a 100-item salad bar, and Roy’s Place, offering over 100 sandwiches in a tavern setting, to a plethora of ethnic offerings of Indian, Mexican and other Hispanic, and Asian cuisines, reflecting the new diverse population of the city.

Gaithersburg: History of a City, The Making of America Series. Gaithersburg: City of Gaithersburg with Arcadia Publishing, 2002.

Gaithersburg, The Heart of Montgomery County: A History Commemorating Gaithersburg’s Charter Centennial. Gaithersburg: The City of Gaithersburg, 1978.