Communities

One of the unique aspects of Anacostia Trails Heritage Area and a defining feature of the Maryland Milestones program is the collection of defined municipalities. With fourteen municipalities, the Heritage Area has the densest collection of incorporated municipalities within its boundaries of any state heritage area. Each community brings a unique experience to your visit.

Bostwick, home of Christopher Lowndes & Benjamin Stoddart

Early 19th Century

The Town of Bladensburg, established in 1742 and incorporated in 1854, was an important colonial tobacco port and the site of the Battle of Bladensburg in the War of 1812. Although the community has undergone many changes, a number of significant historic buildings remain from the colonial and early federal periods, including three 18th-century residences, an 18th-century commercial building and an early 19th-century church.

In the early 19th century, a stone gristmill was erected near the banks of the Patuxent River, and as many other mills sprang up nearby, the village of “Laurel Factory” developed. In 1835, with the introduction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Laurel became a prosperous town and a major station on the new railroad line. The city was incorporated in 1870. Since the creation of the Historic District Commission (HDC) in 1975, the City of Laurel has established seven historic districts within the city’s traditional Main Street corridor. The HDC and the City of Laurel have been instrumental in the adaptive reuse of several of the city’s most historic structures. The Phelps Center, originally the oldest high school in the county, now houses the Laurel Boy’s and Girl’s Club. The Laurel Factory House, an original dwelling for mill workers in the city’s earliest days, is now the Laurel Museum. The B&O Railroad Station is the focal point of a redevelopment effort around the eastern terminus of Main Street.

Late 19th Century Railroad Towns

The oldest of the four National Register Historic Districts in the Heritage Area is in the City of Hyattsville, which was incorporated in 1886. The Hyattsville Historic District is composed of approximately 600 buildings that represent the residential portion of the present city. Hyattsville developed at the intersection of the turnpike and the railroad (now the intersection of Rhode Island Avenue with Alternate US 1); a railroad junction village in the mid-19th century, it later became a streetcar suburb. The town is named for Christopher Clarke Hyatt, a local landowner and merchant who owned large tracts in the area in the 1840s. The historic district’s buildings reflect the styles popular from the 1870s to the 1930s, including the Second Empire, Queen Anne, Italianate, Bungalow and Mediterranean Revival styles.

Hyattsville Historic District

The Town of Berwyn Heights was originally platted in 1888 as Charlton Heights and later incorporated in 1896. The town includes a range of buildings that reflect the residential community as it developed over a 50-year period. Several of its historic homes were constructed from specifications produced by R.W. Shoppell’s Cooperative Building Plan Association and 15 of its older structures have been surveyed by the M-NCPPC Planning Department.

Platted in 1889, Riverdale Park was laid out around the tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on the portion of the Riversdale plantation that included the 1801 mansion of the Calvert family. The subdivision was unusual in that it focused on the plantation house as a central amenity and was laid out as a “village park,” including traffic circles and other park areas reserved as public green space. The forms and styles of the buildings range from the Queen Anne transitional of the 1890s to the craftsman-inspired bungalows of the 1930s. Riverdale Park was incorporated in 1920s.

College Park developed largely as a result of the growth of the Maryland Agricultural College. The first subdivision was platted in 1889 by John O. Johnson on land originally part of the Riversdale estate. After a succession of subdivisions were developed, College Park incorporated in 1945. The oldest buildings in College Park date from the late Victorian period, but the city is largely composed of structures in the Colonial Revival style.

Early 20th Century Streetcar Suburbs

Located in the Rhode Island Avenue corridor, the Town of Brentwood is representative of the type of middle-class suburb that changed the character of the area beginning in the 1890s. Originally an area of large farms, the development of Brentwood was largely initiated by Captain Wallace Bartlett, a retired army officer and inventor. Bartlett had lived in the area since the 1880s and had also been active in the development of Mount Rainier and North Brentwood. Brentwood’s streets are filled with a range of modest, early 20th-century house types. The town was incorporated in 1922.

North Brentwood was the first black community to be incorporated in Prince George’s County. Captain Wallace Bartlett, who had commanded a company of black soldiers during the Civil War, was instrumental in the development of the area. By 1904, a schoolhouse and 23 dwellings had been constructed for black families and in 1924 the town was incorporated. The entire town has been surveyed and 15 individual buildings have been documented.

The development of the Town of Edmonston (incorporated in 1924) began around 1900 on land platted by J. Harris Rogers of Hyattsville and, shortly afterwards, on adjoining land belonging to Dr. Charles A. Wells. The first residents were attracted to the area by the ease of transportation to Washington, D.C., via the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the City and Suburban Streetcar line. Several outstanding examples of late Victorian domestic architecture survive in Edmonston.

The Mount Rainier National Register Historic District is significant as a large and essentially intact example of an early 20th-century streetcar suburb. During its period of settlement and growth, from 1900 to 1940, middle-class families moved into Mount Rainier and built modest houses. The town was incorporated in 1910. They used the Rhode Island Avenue streetcar line to commute to jobs in downtown Washington and surrounding suburbs. The tree-lined streets of Mount Rainier contain a diverse collection of vernacular dwellings and an important group of early 20th-century Revival-style churches. Four Historic Sites and seven historic resources in the district are listed in the county’s Historic Sites and Districts Plan.

Cottage City and Colmar Manor developed in the years following the First World War. The site of Cottage City had been subdivided in 1870 as The Highlands, an exclusive suburban retreat, but The Highlands never materialized, and the area was not developed until the Cottage City and Colmar Manor subdivisions after the war. Both communities are characterized by 1920s cottages and bungalows, tightly packed into small building lots. Both offered affordable housing and an easy commute into the District by either train or streetcar; both were incorporated in the 1920s.

Greenbelt's Roosevelt Center

Automobile Oriented Suburbs (1930s/1940s)

The University Park National Register Historic District is an exclusively residential community that was platted in 1923 and is typical of early 20th-century suburbs with its variety of Revival-style houses. The town grew steadily in the 1930s and was incorporated in 1936. A historic house, Bloomfield, built in 1830, remains and was converted into the residence of the developer of the community. University Park is unique as an early residential suburb that developed as a result of the automobile and, unlike the case in streetcar suburbs, this is reflected in the garages built with the original houses.

The Greenbelt National Register Historic District and National Historic Landmark is one of three planned “greentowns” built by President Roosevelt’s New Deal Resettlement Administration of the late 1930s in response to the nation’s shortage of low- and moderate-income housing. Greenbelt was conceived by Rexford G. Tugwell of the Resettlement Administration, whose dream was to provide housing within the format of a self-sufficient community with open space for recreation. Incorporated in 1937, Greenbelt was the most successful of the greentowns: it retains its original plan and International style buildings, most with very few alterations. The Greenbelt Center School, a designated Historic Site, is an outstanding example of the streamlined Art Deco style.