Notes

 

“On Feb. 28, 1966, the Kettler brothers broke ground for the first house in Montgomery Village. They began moving fully grown trees into Montgomery Village so that it would look like the trees were here the entire time. Remember, the land was mostly farmland, which means there probably weren't very many trees. Instead of buying little trees, they had 10,000 full-grown pin-oak trees planted… They purchased a machine to put the large trees into the ground; this was one of the first of its kind on the east coast.”
— Village History (www.montgomeryvillage.com/about-mv/village-history) 



Lakeforest Regional Mall first opened on September 12, 1978. The mall was one of the first in the United States to feature an indoor ice skating rink. The rink was replaced in 1984, first by a multi theater movie complex, then by a food court which remained until the mall’s official closing March 31, 2023. Lakeforest is scheduled for demolition June 2025 [via Wikipedia, Montgomery Community Media].


 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ancestors helped found St. Rose of Lima Catholic Parish at Clopper and Game Preserve, and the family farm was near NIST. [Farm location at 02:40 “Why F. Scott Fitzgerald is buried in Rockville, Maryland,” Montgomery Community Media, via YouTube]


Image: Thad Zajdowicz, CC by 2.0

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
— The Great Gatsby

39° 8' N

Built 1899

“The City of Gaithersburg and five other cities around the globe are linked by a unique scientific endeavor that began more than 100 years ago. They are all home to latitude observatories that tracked the wobble of the Earth on its polar axis through star readings to aid in navigation. Other observatories can be found in Cincinnati, Ohio; Ukiah, California; Mizusawa, Japan; Kitab, Uzbekistan; and Caligari, Sardinia, Italy.”

— https://www.gaithersburgmd.gov/about-us/city-facilities/international-latitude-observatory

 

Asteroid 7259

Gaithersburg’s NIST campus was officially dedicated November 1966, which at the time (1901–1988) was called National Bureau of Standards.


 

Sugarloaf Mountain

Connects Burlington, IA, (birthplace of Henry Gordon Strong of Chicago real estate fortune buried at Sugarloaf) and Frank Lloyd Wright whose circular style design for him (including planetarium) was rejected, though is reflected in son Robert Llewellyn Wright’s hemicycle Usonian home in Bethesda overlooking Cabin John Creek near Bradley Blvd.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2009/09/09/the-wright-house/