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Chevy Chase () is the name of both a town and an unincorporated census-designated place ( Chevy Chase (CDP), Maryland) that straddle the northwest border of Washington, D.C. and
Montgomery County Montgomery County may refer to: Australia * The former name of Montgomery Land District, Tasmania United Kingdom * The historic county of Montgomeryshire, Wales, also called County of Montgomery United States * Montgomery County, Alabama * Mon ...
, Maryland, United States. Several settlements in the same area of Montgomery County and one neighborhood of Washington include ''Chevy Chase'' in their names. These villages, the town, and the CDP share a common history and together form a larger community colloquially referred to as Chevy Chase. Primarily a residential suburb, Chevy Chase adjoins Friendship Heights, a popular shopping district. It is the home of the Chevy Chase Club and Columbia Country Club, private clubs whose members include many prominent politicians and Washingtonians. Chevy Chase was noted as "the most educated town in America" in a study conducted by the
Stanford Graduate School of Education The Stanford Graduate School of Education (also known as Stanford GSE, or GSE) is one of the seven schools of Stanford University, and is one of the top education schools in the United States. It was founded in 1891 and offers master's and doc ...
, with 93.5 percent of adult residents having at least a bachelor's degree. The name ''Chevy Chase'' is derived from ''Cheivy Chace'', the name of the land patented to Colonel Joseph Belt from Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, on July 10, 1725. It has historic associations with a 1388 ''
chevauchée A ''chevauchée'' (, "promenade" or "horse charge", depending on context) was a raiding method of medieval warfare for weakening the enemy, primarily by burning and pillaging enemy territory in order to reduce the productivity of a region, in add ...
'', a French word describing a border raid, fought by Lord Percy of England and Earl Douglas of Scotland over hunting grounds, or a "
chace Chace may refer to: People Surname Chace * Arnold Buffum Chace (1845–1932), mathematician and chancellor of Brown University * Burton W. Chace (1901–1972), former mayor of Long Beach, California * Charles A. Chace (1822–1900), American poli ...
", in the Cheviot Hills of Northumberland and Otterburn. The battle was memorialized in " The Ballad of Chevy Chase".


History


19th century

In the 1880s, Senator
Francis G. Newlands Francis Griffith Newlands (August 28, 1846December 24, 1917) was a United States representative and Senator from Nevada and a member of the Democratic Party. A supporter of westward expansion, he helped pass the Newlands Reclamation Act of 19 ...
of Nevada and his partners began acquiring farmland in this unincorporated area of Maryland and just inside the District of Columbia, for the purpose of developing a residential
streetcar suburb A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when ...
for Washington, D.C., during the expansion of the Washington streetcars system. Newlands and his partners founded The Chevy Chase Land Company in 1890, and its holdings of more than eventually extended along the present-day Connecticut Avenue from Florida Avenue north to Jones Bridge Road. Newlands, an avowed white supremacist, and his development company took steps to ensure that residents of its new suburbs would be wealthy and white; for example, "requiring, in the deed to the land, that only a single-family detached house costing a large amount of money could be constructed. The Chevy Chase Land Company did not include explicit bars against non-white people, known as racial covenants, but the mandated cost of the house made it impractical for all but the wealthiest non-white people to buy the land." Houses were required to cost $5,000 and up on Connecticut Avenue and $3,000 and up on side streets. The company banned commerce from the residential neighborhoods.
Leon E. Dessez Leon Emil Dessez (April 12, 1858 – December 25, 1918) was an American architect in Washington D.C. He designed public buildings in Washington D.C. and residences in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, including some of the first in Chevy C ...
was Chevy Chase's first resident. He and
Lindley Johnson Lindley Johnson (January 18, 1854February 27, 1937) was a noted Philadelphia architect. Johnson was born in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended Germantown Academy before graduating from the University of Penn ...
of Philadelphia designed the first four houses in the area. Toward the northern end of its holdings, the Land Company formed a manmade lake, called Chevy Chase Lake, to produce hydroelectric power for its streetcars, and provide a venue for boating, swimming, and other activities. The streetcar soon became vital to the community; it connected workers to the city, and even ran errands for residents. Part of the original Cheivy Chace patent had been sold to
Abraham Bradley Abraham Bradley Jr. (February 22, 1767 – May 7, 1838) was an American lawyer, judge, and cartographer, who was an assistant postmaster general for 30 years during the earliest history of the United States Post Office Department. Bradley w ...
, who built an estate known as the Bradley Farm. In 1892, Newlands and other members of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C., founded a hunt club called Chevy Chase Hunt, which would later become Chevy Chase Club. In 1894, the club located itself on the former Bradley Farm property under a lease from its owners. The club introduced a six-hole golf course to its members in 1895, and purchased the 9.36-acre Bradley Farm tract in 1897.


20th century

In 1906, the Chevy Chase Land Company blocked a proposed subdivision called
Belmont Belmont may refer to: People * Belmont (surname) Places * Belmont Abbey (disambiguation) * Belmont Historic District (disambiguation) * Belmont Hotel (disambiguation) * Belmont Park (disambiguation) * Belmont Plantation (disambiguation) * Belmon ...
after they learned its Black developers aimed to sell house lots to other African Americans. In subsequent litigation, the company and its affiliates argued that those developers had committed fraud by proposing "to sell lots...to negroes." By the 1920s,
restrictive covenant A covenant, in its most general sense and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a se ...
s were added to Chevy Chase real estate deeds. Some prohibited both the sale or rental of homes to "a Negro or one of the African race." Others prohibited sales or rentals to "any persons of the Semetic 'sic''">sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''race", i.e. the exclusion of Jews">sic">'sic<_a>''.html" ;"title="sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''">sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''race", i.e. the exclusion of Jews. By World War II, such restrictive language had largely disappeared from real estate transactions, and all were voided by the 1948 Supreme Court decision in ''Shelley v. Kraemer''. Lea M. Bouligny founded the Chevy Chase College and Seminary for Young Ladies at the Chevy Chase Inn, located at 7100 Connecticut Avenue). The name was changed to Chevy Chase Junior College in 1927. The National 4-H Club Foundation purchased the property in 1951, turning it into the group's Youth Conference Center. For decades, the center hosted the National 4-H Conference, an event for 4-Hers throughout the nation to attend, and the annual National Science Bowl in late April or early May.


21st century

The National 4-H Club Foundation sold the center in 2021 for $40 million; as of 2022, it is to be replaced by a senior living development.


Subdivisions

* Census-designated place of Chevy Chase * Incorporated town of Chevy Chase *
Chevy Chase (Washington, D.C.) Chevy Chase () is a neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. It borders Chevy Chase, Maryland, a collection of similarly affluent neighborhoods. Geography The neighborhood is generally agreed to be bounded by Rock Creek Park on the east, Wester ...


Villages

* Chevy Chase Village, Maryland * Chevy Chase Section Three, Maryland * Chevy Chase Section Five, Maryland * Martin's Additions, Maryland * North Chevy Chase, Maryland In addition to the Maryland villages listed above, the United States Postal Service uses Chevy Chase for some postal addresses that lie outside historical Chevy Chase: in Somerset, the Village of Friendship Heights, and the Rock Creek Forest area, east of Jones Mill Road and Beach Drive and west of Grubb Road.


Education

Chevy Chase is served by the
Montgomery County Public Schools Montgomery County Public Schools may refer to: *Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland) *Montgomery County Public Schools (Virginia) Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is the school district serving Montgomery County, Virginia. Schools P ...
. Residents of Chevy Chase are zoned to either Chevy Chase or North Chevy Chase Elementary School, which feed into Silver Creek Middle School and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Private schools in Chevy Chase include Concord Hill School, Oneness-Family School, and Blessed Sacrament School.


Retail


Notable people


Current residents

*
Ann Brashares Ann Brashares (born July 30, 1967) is an American young adult novelist. She is best known as the author of ''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'' series. Life and career Brashares was born in Alexandria, Virginia, and grew up in Chevy Chase, ...
- author * Tony Kornheiser - television host, currently ESPN employee presenter * Brett Kavanaugh - associate justice, United States Supreme Court *
Marvin Kalb Marvin Leonard Kalb (born June 9, 1930) is an American journalist. Kalb was the founding director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy from 1987 to 1999. The Shor ...
- journalist * Ted Lerner - owner of Lerner Enterprises and the Washington Nationals *
Chris Matthews Christopher John Matthews (born December 17, 1945) is an American political commentator, retired talk show host, and author. Matthews hosted his weeknight hour-long talk show, ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'', on America's Talking and later on M ...
- commentator * Krzysztof Pietroszek - professor and filmmaker * Jerome Powell - current Chairman of the Federal Reserve * John Roberts - Chief Justice of the United States * Mark Shields - political columnist * George Will - conservative commentator *
A. B. Stoddard Alexandra Brandon Stoddard is a writer at large at The Bulwark (website), The Bulwark and an associate editor and columnist at RealClearPolitics. Previously, she worked as an associate editor and columnist for ''The Hill (newspaper), The Hill'' n ...
- political commentator and editor of
RealClearPolitics RealClearPolitics (RCP) is an American political news website and polling data aggregator formed in 2000 by former options trader John McIntyre and former advertising agency account executive Tom Bevan. The site features selected political ...
* Howard Kurtz - host of Fox News program Media Buzz *
Collin Martin Collin Martin (born November 9, 1994) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a midfielder for San Diego Loyal in the USL Championship. He has played for D.C. United and Minnesota United FC in Major League Soccer, and for Rich ...
- soccer player


Former residents

* Yosef Alon * Jamshid Amouzegar, former prime minister of Iran. * Tom Braden - journalist and author * David Brinkley - journalist * John Charles Daly - radio and television personality * Bill Guckeyson - athlete and military aviator * Ed Henry - White House correspondent for Fox News * Richard Helms - former director of the Central Intelligence Agency * Genevieve Hughes - one of the 13 original
Freedom Riders Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions ''Morgan v. Virginia' ...
* Hubert Humphrey - vice president of the United States under Lyndon Johnson * Gayle King - co-anchor of '' CBS This Morning'' and an editor-at-large for '' O, The Oprah Magazine'' * Anthony McAuliffe - US general known for his defense of Bastogne during World War II *
Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was both the first woman nominated and th ...
- United States Supreme Court Justice; lived in Chevy Chase until 2005 * Hilary Rhoda - model * Nancy Grace Roman - NASA's first female executive and, as Chief of Astronomy throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the founder of its space astronomy program and "Mother of Hubble". * Peter Rosenberg - radio disc jockey, television host, and podcaster * Danny Rubin - American-Israeli basketball player for
Bnei Herzliya Bnei Herzliya Basket (, lit. ''Sons of Herzliya''), is a professional basketball club that is based in Herzliya, in the Sharon district in Israel. The club plays in the Israeli Basketball Premier League, the top division of Israeli basketball. It ...
of the
Israeli Basketball Premier League Ligat HaAl ( he, ליגת העל, lit., ''Supreme League or Premier League''), or the Israeli Basketball Premier League, is the top-tier level league of professional sports, professional competition in Israeli sports club, club basketball, making ...
* Karl Truesdell, U.S. Army major general


References


External links


History of the Chevy Chase Land Company

Chevy Chase Historical Society

The Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce
{{Montgomery County, Maryland 1890 establishments in Maryland Sundown towns in Maryland Upper class culture in Maryland