City Tour of Aspen Hill MD

Aspen Hill was largely agricultural until the middle of the Twentieth Century. The land grant for "Lahill" (the original spelling of Layhill) was in 1718 and included 1298 acres of land. Large land areas were gradually divided and sold, creating farms of several hundred acres each. At the time of the American Revolution, there was a mill on upper Rock Creek, called Elgar's Mill, near the site of the later Muncaster Mill. When State voting districts were established in 1790, this area became known as the Berry District.

In the mid-1830s, the James Rannie family of Scotland (buried in the Beall family cemetery) established a 700-acre farm at what is now Georgia Avenue and Chesterwood Drive. Georgia Avenue was then the Brookeville--Georgetown Turnpike (later called the Washington--Brookeville Turnpike) and was one of the only roads in the area. Soon after, Samuel Veirs built his grist mill at what is now the intersection of Veirs Mill and Aspen Hill Roads.

During the Civil War, both Confederate and Union troops traveled the Turnpike, one of the best-maintained roads in the County. Union troops under General Ambrose Burnside were quartered in Aspen Hill in September 1862 on their way to the Battle of Antietam. In July 1864, General Jubal Early led his men down Veirs Mill Road during his unsuccessful raid on Washington.

In 1864, the first post office was opened in Aspen Hill, operating from a general store on the Washington--Brookeville Pile where Connecticut and Georgia Avenues now intersect. Alexander Leadingham was the first postmaster, and the community was called Enster, after the local Land Grant). The name Aspen Hill is said to have come from the aspen trees located at the post-office site in the late Nineteenth Century. The post office shifted back and forth between Norbeck and Aspen Hill over the years until the current post-office building opened on November 28, 1977. (In 2003, it was moved to 13529 Connecticut Avenue in the Aspen Hill Shopping Center.)

There were two general stores and a blacksmith shop on the Washington--Brookeville Turnpike (now Georgia Avenue) between what is now Connecticut Avenue and Heathfield Road. Another general store and blacksmith were located on what is Muncaster Mill Road and Norbeck Road. Two area schools were also located near these centers.

In addition to the two area schools, the Lay Hill Academy was located on Layhill road near the Layhill M.E. Church (now known as the Oak Chapel United Methodist Church). In the Norbeck area, the black community of Mt Pleasant had a school as early as 1872. It was destroyed by fire in 1925, but was replaced by the Norbeck Colored School on the same site in 1927. This school was closed in 1951.

The first subdivision of land in the Aspen Hill area occurred in 1926, when the Manor Country Club sold some of its property for residences. The Manor Club idea came from E. Brooke Lee and T. Howard Duckett, when they formed a syndicate for the purpose of creating a country club in 1923. They purchased "Homewood", an estate established in 1849 by Charles Abert, who married Constantina Bache (great granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin). The old stone manor house was replaced by a brick clubhouse soon after, and lots were sold around the fringes of the golf course.

Very little development occurred in the area during the Depression and Second World War, but by 1945, more land was made available by the Manor Club, and homes were built along Homecrest Road and Gayfields Road. The next surge of development occurred along Aspen Hill road in the early 1950s and then along Georgia Avenue in the second half of othe 1950s. Vitro Laboratories opened in 1957, and the Aspen Hill Shopping Center opened in 1958.

By the 1960s, major developers and builders, many with national and international operations, began to build in the area. Levitt & Sons, who build Bowie and other large Washington projects, built Strathmore at Bel Pre in 1968. Roww W. Cortese, a California builder, built Rossmore/Leisure World, a self-contained community for retired or semi-retired persons over the age of 52, in 1966.

Aspen Hill Links
Aspen Hill Network
Montgomery County Public Schools