LEARN ABOUT CHEVY CHASE

The History of Chevy Chase, Maryland

Chevy Chase may trace its name to the “chaces,” or hunting grounds, in the
Cheviot Hills along the Scottish-English border. Or, the name may be derived from the French word "chevauchee," used in medieval Scotland and England to describe horseback border raids. The English and Scots met in a bloody clash over such hunting grounds in 1388 -- a battle immortalized in the famous ballads of Battle of Otterbourne and Chevy Chase.

In 1725, Colonel Joseph Belt received
a patent for 560 acres of land in
colonial Maryland, just northwest of the future Washington, DC. He named it
“Cheivy Chace.”

The area remained farmland until the late nineteenth century, when it became
the nucleus of the streetcar suburb that retained the name and grew to
become today’s Chevy Chase.

Two 19th-century entrepreneurs, Francis G. Newlands and William Stewart,
developed Chevy Chase as a “home suburb for the nation’s capital” in the
late 1800s, when
railroads and electric
streetcars made it
possible for city
dwellers to live away
from their place of
work. Newlands was
heir to the Comstock
Load fortune and a
future representative
of Nevada in both
houses of the U.S.
Congress. Stewart
was a U.S. Senator
from Nevada. Together
they quietly bought up
several thousand
acres along the route
that would become
Connecticut Avenue,
and transferred the
land to their newly-
formed Chevy Chase
Land Company. The
Land Company
proceeded to extend
Connecticut Avenue
from Calvert Street to
Chevy Chase Lake, an
artificial lake and
amusement park built by the Land Company to attract residents to the new
suburb. Along the new avenue, they constructed a streetcar line.

Chevy Chase’s founders envisioned a distinctive community of handsome homes in a park-like setting, featuring broad streets, sidewalks and parks. There would be no alleys reminiscent of the crowded city, and businesses would be located only at its boundaries. They provided every municipal convenience

-- water, electricity, schools, churches, recreational facilities -- and connected it all to the city of Washington with streetcar service.

Life in early Chevy
Chase revolved
around the streetcar
line. Commuters
rode it to and from
work in the city.
Children rode it to
and from school.
The streetcar
“skipper” ran
errands in the city
for Chevy Chase
residents and
delivered groceries
and packages to
green boxes at
several corners

along Connecticut Avenue. And residents of both the city and the suburb rode the streetcar to Chevy Chase Lake to picnic, fish, ride the carousel and dance to the music of bandleaders including Eubie Blake and John Philip Sousa.