Bethesda is located in the traditional territory of the indigenous Native
Piscataway and
Nacotchtank at the time of
European colonization. Fur trader Henry Fleet became the first European to visit the area, reaching it by sailing up the
Potomac River. He stayed with the Piscataway tribe from 1623 to 1627, either as a guest or prisoner (historical accounts differ). Fleet eventually secured funding for another expedition to the region and was later granted proprietary rights to 2,000 acres of land in the nascent colony and became a member of Maryland's colonial legislature. Raids from the
Senecas and
Susquehannock resulted in the creation of the Maryland division of Rangers in 1694 to patrol the
frontier. By 1862, a small settlement had grown around a store and tollhouse along the turnpike known as "Darcy's Store" for the store's owner, William E. Darcy. It consisted of a blacksmith shop, a church and school, and a few houses and stores. In 1871, postmaster Robert Franck renamed the settlement for the church. A streetcar line was established in 1890 and suburbanization increased in the early 1900s, and Bethesda grew in population. Communities near railroad lines had grown the fastest during the 19th century. Subdivisions began to appear on old farmland in the late 19th century, becoming the neighborhoods of Drummond, Woodmont, Edgemoor, and Battery Park. Farther north, several wealthy men made Rockville Pike famous for its mansions. These included
Brainard W. Parker ("Cedarcroft", 1892),
James Oyster (
"Strathmore", 1899),
George E. Hamilton ("Hamilton House", 1904; now the
Stone Ridge School),
Luke I. Wilson ("Tree Tops", 1926),
Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor ("Wild Acres", 1928–29), and
George Freeland Peter ("Stone House", 1930). In 1930,
Armistead Peter's pioneering manor house "Winona" (1873) became the clubhouse of the Woodmont Country Club on land that is now part of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus.
Merle Thorpe's mansion "Pook's Hill" (1927, razed 1948) became the home-in-exile of the
Norwegian royal family during
World War II. Before the passage of the
Fair Housing Act of 1968,
restrictive covenants were used in Bethesda to exclude racial and ethnic minorities—primarily African-Americans, but also Asian-Americans and ethnic groups regarded as "Semitic", including Armenians, Jews, Iranians, Greeks, Turks, and Syrians. In practice, covenants excluding "Semitic races" were generally used to exclude Jews as Montgomery County did not have notable Armenian, Greek, Syrian, or Turkish populations at the time. One 1938 restrictive covenant in the Bradley Woods subdivision of Bethesda said: "No part of the land hereby conveyed, shall ever be used, or occupied by or sold, demised, transferred, conveyed, unto, or in trust for, leased, or rented, or given to negroes, or any person or persons of negro blood or extraction or to any person of the Semitic Race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Armenians, Jews, Hebrews, Persians, Syrians, Greeks and Turks, or to any person of the Mongolian Race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolians, except that this paragraph shall not be held to exclude partial occupancy of the premises by domestic servants of the purchaser or purchasers."
World War II and the subsequent expansion of government fed the rapid growth of Bethesda. Both the
National Naval Medical Center (1940–42) and the NIH complex (1948) were built just to the north of the developing downtown, and this drew government contractors, medical professionals, and other businesses to the area. Bethesda became the major urban core and employment center of southwestern Montgomery County. In the 2000s, the strict height limits on construction in the District of Columbia led to the development of mid-and high-rise office and residential towers around the Bethesda Metro station. ==Geography==