Early history (1830–1865) In the 1830s and 1840s, the central business area was focused around the intersection of Liberty Mill Road and Clopper Road. Several German immigrants set up shop at the intersection and the town became known as "German Town", even though most residents of the town were of English or Scottish descent.
American Civil War Although it avoided much of the physical destruction that ravaged other cities in the region, the
Civil War was still a cause of resentment and division among residents of Germantown. Many Germantown residents were
against slavery and had sons fighting for the
Union Army. In contrast, other residents of Germantown owned slaves, and even those who were not slave-owners had sons fighting for the
Confederate Army. As a result, many people in Germantown, who had been on friendly terms with each other, made an effort not to interact with each other, such as switching churches, or frequenting a store or mill miles away from the ones they would normally do business with. Late in the summer and fall of 1861, there were more than twenty thousand Union soldiers camped to the west of Germantown, in neighboring
Darnestown and
Poolesville. Occasionally, these soldiers would come to Germantown and frequent the stores there. In September 1862 and in June 1863, several regiments of Union Army soldiers marched north on
Maryland Route 355, on their way to the
battles of Antietam and
Gettysburg, respectively. In July 1864, General
Jubal Early led his army of Confederate soldiers down Maryland Route 355 to attack the Union capital of
Washington, D.C. Throughout the course of the war, Confederate raiders would often pass through the Germantown area. Local farmers in the Germantown area lost horses and other livestock to both Union and Confederate armies.
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln In 1865,
George Atzerodt, a co-conspirator in the
assassination of
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, was captured in Germantown. Atzerodt had come to the town with his family from Prussia when he was about nine years old. About five years later, his father moved the family to
Virginia, but Atzerodt still had many friends and relatives in Germantown.
Expansion (1865–1950) Germantown did not have a public school until after the end of the
American Civil War. During that time, education was handled at home. In 1868, a one-room schoolhouse was built on
Maryland Route 118, near Black Rock Road, which hosted children from both Germantown and neighboring Darnestown. The wooden structure of the Bowman Brothers Mill fell victim to a fire in 1914. Four years later, the owners were back in business again, selling the mill to the Liberty Milling Company, a brand new corporation. Augustus Selby was the first owner and manager of the new Liberty Mill, which opened in 1918. Electricity was brought into Liberty Mill and also served the homes and businesses nearby, making Germantown the first area in the northern portion of Montgomery County to receive electricity. In 1935, professional baseball player
Walter Perry Johnson, who played as a pitcher for the Washington Senators (now the
Minnesota Twins), purchased a farm on what is now the site of
Seneca Valley High School. Used as a dairy farm, Johnson lived there with his five children and his mother (his wife had died), until his death in 1946. A road near the school was named after him. "Feed the Liberty Way" was used as a slogan for Liberty Mill which, with eight silos, became the second largest mill in all of Maryland, supplying flour to the
United States Army during
World War II. Cornmeal and animal feed were also manufactured at Liberty Mill, and a store at the mill sold specialty mixes, such as pancake and muffin mix. Following the end of
World War II, the Liberty Mill went into disrepair. For over 25 years, the mill continued to deteriorate until it was destroyed by an arsonist on May 30, 1972. The cement silos were removed by the county in 1986 to make way for the MARC Germantown train station commuter parking lot.
Development and master plan (1950–1980) In January 1958, the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was relocated from its location in downtown
Washington, D.C., to Germantown, which was considered far enough from the city to withstand a
Soviet nuclear attack. The facility now operates as an administration complex for the
U.S. Department of Energy and headquarters for its Office of Biological and Environmental Research. After I-270 divided his farm in two, Davis decided to sell the last of his land to the International Development Corporation for about $1,300 per acre in 1955. The plan for the area included a dense central downtown area and less dense development surrounding it. In 1967, the
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, in its planning of the
Washington metro, considered having Germantown be the western terminus for the
Red Line. Ultimately,
Shady Grove was selected instead. In 1974, the Montgomery County Council approved an amended plan written by the Montgomery County Planning Board. During the 1970s,
Wernher von Braun, a German rocket scientist during
World War II, worked for the aerospace company
Fairchild Industries, which had offices in Germantown, as its vice president for Engineering and Development. Von Braun worked at Fairchild Industries from July 1, 1972, until his death on June 16, 1977. The
A-10 Thunderbolt and the landing gear of the
Space Shuttle were both designed at these offices. The Germantown Campus of
Montgomery College opened on October 21, 1978. At the time, it consisted of two buildings, 24 employees, and 1,200 students. Enrollment had increased to five thousand students by 2003, with eighty employees across four buildings. A steel
water tower modeled after the
Earth can be seen from orbiting satellites in
outer space. As of 2008, a forty-acre bio-technology laboratory was nearing completion.
Economic growth and modern development (1980–present) 's Clopper Lake in October 2002 Since the early 1980s, Germantown has experienced rapid economic and population growth, both in the form of townhouses and single-family dwellings, and an urbanized "town center" has been built. Germantown was the fastest-growing ZIP code in the
Washington metropolitan area and Maryland in 1986, and the 1980s saw a population growth of 323.3% for Germantown. In 2000, the Upcounty Regional Services Center opened in Germantown, and a 16,000 square feet section of the first floor was home to the Germantown Public Library for several years until it moved to a new, 19 million dollar complex in 2007. On September 29, 2013, it was renamed as the Sidney Kramer Upcounty Regional Services Center after Sidney Kramer, Montgomery County executive from 1986 to 1990. The sports complex includes nineteen natural grass fields, three artificial fields, a 5,200 seat soccer stadium with lighting and press box, eight indoor convertible basketball/volleyball courts. The soccerplex was the home of the
Washington Spirit of the
National Women's Soccer League from 2013 to 2019. In 2003, one of Germantown's trailer parks, the Cider Barrel Mobile Home Park, closed after decades of operation, having been in business since at least the 1970s. Despite this closure, the Barrel building itself was preserved, with a cluster of
garden apartments erected near it. Holy Cross Health opened a hospital on the campus of Montgomery College in October 2014, becoming the first hospital in the U.S. to be built on a community college campus. The opening of the new 93-bed hospital strengthened the college's medical program by giving students the opportunity for hands-on work and access to more advanced medical technology. In August 2017, Brandi Edinger initiated efforts to
crowdfund the repurposing of the historic Cider Barrel as a bakery via
Kickstarter, but failed to meet the $80,000 goal set. On January 1, 2020, it was reported that plans are underway to reopen the Barrel in the spring of that year after it was closed for nearly two decades. However, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic it had been delayed indefinitely. The barrel structure was vandalized in April 2023. ==Geography==