Chevy Chase

History

In the 1880s, Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada and his partners began acquiring farmland in unincorporated areas of Maryland and just inside the District of Columbia, for the purpose of developing a residential streetcar suburb for Washington, D.C., during the expansion of the Washington streetcars system. Newlands and his partners founded The Chevy Chase Land Company in 1890, and its holdings of more than eventually extended along the present-day Connecticut Avenue from Florida Avenue north to Jones Bridge Road. Newlands, an avowed white supremacist, and his development company took steps to ensure that residents of its new suburbs would be wealthy and white; for example, "requiring, in the deed to the land, that only a single-family detached house costing a large amount of money could be constructed. The Chevy Chase Land Company did not include explicit bars against non-white people, known as racial covenants, but the mandated cost of the house made it impractical for all but the wealthiest non-white people to buy the land." Houses were required to cost $5,000 and up on Connecticut Avenue and $3,000 and up on side streets. The company banned commerce from the residential neighborhoods. Leon E. Dessez was Chevy Chase's first resident. He and Lindley Johnson of Philadelphia designed the first four houses in the area. Toward the northern end of its holdings, the Land Company dammed Coquelin Run, a stream that crossed its land, to create the manmade Chevy Chase Lake. The body of water furnished water to the coal-fired generators that powered the streetcars of the Land Company's Rock Creek Railway. The streetcar soon became vital to the community; it connected workers to the city, and even ran errands for residents. The lake was also the centerpiece of the…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  187,816
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  162,211
• Carolina Wren

  Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  143,795
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  142,312
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  132,673
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  126,537
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  123,651
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  118,761