The electric streetcar accelerated the growth of the community as a “streetcar suburb” of Washington, D.C. by making it easy to travel to downtown Washington and other destinations on the system. The “Maryland Line” first opened service from downtown Washington to Hyattsville in 1899 and was extended to Berwyn in 1900 and then to Laurel in 1902. The streetcar system served the College Park community for nearly 60 years, ending in 1958; it was to be 35 years before the Metro “Green Line” service to College Park began a similar route in 1993. The demise of the streetcar system was due in part to the growing popularity of the automobile and bus transit, with the one-time Baltimore-Washington Turnpike evolving into Route 1, the nation’s first highway.
The College Park Airfield, established by Orville and Wilbur Wright, also attracted new attention to the growing community. Although the Wright Brothers had hoped that relocating their training ground from Fort Myer to the more remote College Park location would reduce the size of the crowds of onlookers, the spectators followed them to the new airfield to watch the daring young men in their flying machines. Many aviation firsts were accomplished at the College Park Airfield, including the first mile-high flight (1912), first flight of the U.S. Postal Airmail Service (1918), and first controlled helicopter flight (1924). Radio navigation also saw significant advancement at the College Park Airfield, and the National Bureau of Standards’ work on the development of radio navigational aids at the College Park Airport resulted in the first successful “blind flight” using only instruments to guide the plane (1933). Over the subsequent decades, the airport continued to serve small planes and earned its distinction as the oldest continuously operating airport in the world. The College Park Aviation Museum, opened in 1998, offers fascinating exhibits about the history of flight to educate today’s flying aficionados both young and old.
The earliest communities that comprise present-day College Park were Branchville, Berwyn, Lakeland, and the neighborhood that was once called College Park and is now known as Old Town. In 1867, a post office was established to serve the fledgling Branchville community. Neighboring Berwyn began to develop in 1891, as did Lakeland, named for the lakes that were used for swimming, boating, ice skating, and a commercial goldfish farm (approximately in the same location as today’s man-made Lake Artemesia). Lakeland, initially designed as a lakeside resort, became a close-knit and significant African-American community. To the south, John Oliver Johnson purchased land in 1890 from Ella Campbell, a Calvert heir, subdivided the property, and named his new development “College Park.” The next neighborhoods to be developed were Daniels Park (1905), Calvert Hills (1907), and Hollywood (1920s and 30s), followed later by Hollywood on the Hill, Yarrow, College Park Estates, College Park Woods, Autoville, and Sunnyside. College Park incorporated as a town in 1945 and today is a thriving city with nearly 30,000 residents.
Want more information? For the History and Heritage of Daniels Park and Hollywood, click here.