The lake itself provided water for the coal-fired steam turbines that powered the electric streetcars of the Rock Creek Railway, the trolley line built by the Chevy Chase Land Company to connect residents of its new suburb to Washington, D.C. The railway's terminal complex, some 1.7 miles due north of the Maryland-D.C. border, sat just north of the park. It included the power house with its tall chimney, a car barn, a turnaround loop, and a small station. It also served as the southern terminus of the Chevy Chase Lake & Kensington Railway, which connected the town of Kensington to D.C.
The park operated from spring to fall. In preparation for the 1912 season, the park received a carousel, renovations to its dance pavilion, and new walks and benches. Music was provided by the United States Marine Band.[2]
In 1916, a band led by 22-year-old Meyer Davis displaced the Marines as the park's main dance band.[3] Wrote the Washington Post:
The lure of the dance is proving potent these evenings at Chevy Chase Lake. The cars [streetcars] to the Maryland resort are crowded each night by Washington's young people who wish to keep time to the melodies provided by the Meyer Davis orchestra for dances on the big Chevy Chase pavilion. Various amusement devices, including the carousel for the youngsters, await non-dancing visitors to Chevy Chase Lake.
The following year, Meyer took over management of the entire park, which became the foundation of his sprawling dance-band business.[4] By the time he relinquished it in the early 1930s[5], Davis would be the "biggest businessman among U.S. band leaders," as Time put it in 1941,[6] a wealthy society figure whose operations included some 80 bands with 1,000 musicians playing all along the East Coast.[7]
By 1922, a second dance pavilion had opened, featuring bands led by Davis and Joseph Shirley “Pete” Macias (1898-1947)[8], a native Washingtonian who became a popular local nightclub pianist and bandleader[9].
The last known newspaper advertisements for the amusement park appeared in 1936, suggesting that the park closed after the summer season.[10]
Chevy Chase is the colloquial name of an area that includes a town, several incorporated villages, and an unincorporated census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland; and one adjoining neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. Most derive from a late-19th-century effort to create a new suburb that its developer dubbed Chevy Chase after a colonial land patent.
In the United States, trolley parks, which started in the 19th century, were picnic and recreation areas along or at the ends of streetcar lines in most of the larger cities. These were precursors to amusement parks. Trolley parks were often created by the streetcar companies to give people a reason to use their services on weekends.
Chevy Chase is a neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. It borders Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Glen Echo Park is an arts and cultural center in Glen Echo, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Located about 9 miles (14 km) northwest of the city's downtown area, the park's site was initially developed in 1891 as a National Chautauqua Assembly.
Connecticut Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., and suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. It is one of the diagonal avenues radiating from the White House, and the segment south of Florida Avenue was one of the original streets in Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's plan for Washington. A five-mile segment north of Rock Creek was built in the 1890s by a real-estate developer.
Francis Griffith Newlands was an American politician and land developer who served as United States representative and Senator from Nevada and a member of the Democratic Party.
Stewart Park is a municipal park operated by the City of Ithaca, New York on the southern end of Cayuga Lake, the largest of New York's Finger Lakes.
Streetcars in Washington, D.C. transported people across the city and region from 1862 until 1962.
The Rock Creek Railway, which operated independently from 1890 to 1895, was one of the first electric streetcar companies in Washington, D.C., and the first to extend into Maryland.
The National Capital Trolley Museum (NCTM) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that operates historic street cars, trolleys and trams for the public on a regular schedule. Located in Montgomery County, Maryland, the museum's primary mission is to preserve and interpret the history of the electric street and interurban railways of the National Capital region.
Streetcars and interurbans operated in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., between 1890 and 1962.
The Capital Traction Company was the smaller of the two major street railway companies in Washington, D.C., in the early 20th century.
The Washington Railway and Electric Company (WRECo) was the larger of the two major streetcar companies in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs in the early decades of the 20th century.
Silver Beach County Park is a park located in St. Joseph, Michigan at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. It was formerly Silver Beach Amusement Park, an amusement park, which operated between 1891 and 1971.
Pen Mar Park is a scenic area in Pen Mar, Washington County, Maryland. It is located on Pen Mar High Rock Road adjacent to the Mason–Dixon line.
The Chevy Chase Land Company is a real estate holding and development company based in suburban Washington, D.C.
The Chevy Chase Lake & Kensington Railway was a streetcar company that operated in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, from 1895 to 1935. It connected the town of Kensington to the northern terminus of the Rock Creek Railway at Chevy Chase Lake. At its peak, it operated on about 3.75 miles of track, including the associated Sandy Spring Railway.
A trio of streetcar companies provided service along a single 10-mile line from the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Georgetown northward and ultimately to Rockville, Maryland, in the early decades of the 20th century.
Meyer Davis was a society musician in the 1920s to 1960s who at the height of his career owned and operated over 80 bands with more than 1,000 musicians playing for him.
Coquelin Run is a tributary of Rock Creek in Montgomery County, Maryland. It rises in the Town of Chevy Chase, runs for about two miles while draining an area of 1,095 acres, and debouches in Rock Creek in unincorporated Chevy Chase.
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