Montgomery County
Montgomery County of the U.S. state of Maryland is situated just north of Washington, D.C. and southwest of Baltimore. It is one of the most affluent counties in the nation, and has the highest percentage (29.2%) of residents over 25 years of age who hold post-graduate degrees. The county seat and largest municipality is Rockville. Most of the county's approximately 950,680 residents live in unincorporated locales, the most populous of which are Silver Spring, Germantown, and Bethesda, though the incorporated cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg are also large population centers. It is a part of both the Washington Metropolitan Area and the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area.
As of 2008, Montgomery County is the second richest county per capita in the State of Maryland and 8th richest in the nation, with a median household income of $91,440.
Economy
Montgomery County is an important business and research center. It is the epicenter for biotechnology in the Mid-Atlantic region. Montgomery County is the third largest biotechnology cluster in the nation, holding the principal cluster and companies of large corporate size in the state. Biomedical research is done in the county through institutions like Johns Hopkins University's Montgomery County Campus (JHU MCC), Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Maryland. Federal government agencies engaged in related work include the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health, and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Many large firms are based in the county. Discovery Communications, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Host Hotels & Resorts, Travel Channel, Ritz-Carlton, Robert Louis Johnson Companies (RLJ Cos), Choice Hotels, MedImmune, Chevy Chase Bank, TV One, BAE Systems Inc, Hughes Network Systems, and GEICO are just a few of the large firms headquartered in Montgomery County.
Other U.S. federal government agencies based in the county include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring are the largest urban business hubs in the county; combined, they rival many major city cores.
History
Before European settlement, the land now known as Montgomery County was covered in a vast swath of forest crossed by the creeks and small streams that feed the Potomac and Patuxent rivers. A few small villages of the Piscataway, members of the Algonquian people, were scattered across the southern portions of the county. North of the Great Falls of the Potomac, there were few permanent settlements, and the Piscataway shared hunting camps and foot paths with members of rival peoples like the Susquehannocks and the Senecas.
Captain John Smith of the English settlement at Jamestown was probably the first European to explore the area, during his travels along the Potomac River and throughout the Chesapeake region.
These lands were claimed by Europeans for the first time when George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore was granted the charter for the colony of Maryland by Charles I of England. However, it wasn't until 1688 that the first tract of land in what is now Montgomery County was granted by the Calvert family to an individual colonist, a wealthy and prominent early Marylander named Henry Darnall. He and other early claimants had no intention of settling their families. They were little more than speculators, securing grants from the colonial leadership and then selling their lands in pieces to settlers. Thus, it was not until approximately 1715 that the first English settlers began building farms and plantations in the area.
These earliest settlers were English or Scottish immigrants from other portions of Maryland, German settlers moving down from Pennsylvania, or Quakers who came to settle on land granted to a convert named James Brooke in what is now Brookeville. Most of these early settlers were small farmers, growing a variety of subsistence crops in addition to the region's main cash crop, tobacco. They transported the tobacco they grew to market through the Potomac River port of Georgetown. Sparsely settled, the area's farms and taverns were nonetheless of strategic importance as access to the interior. General Edward Braddock's army traveled through the county on the way to their disastrous defeat at Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War.
Like other regions of the American colonies, the future Montgomery County saw protests against British taxation in the years before the American Revolution. Following the signing of the Declaration of Independence, representatives of the area helped draft the new state constitution and begin to build a Maryland free of proprietary control. The new state legislature formed Montgomery County from lands that had at one point or another been part of Charles, Prince George's, and Frederick Counties, naming it after General Richard Montgomery. The leaders of the new county chose as their county seat an area adjacent to Hungerford's Tavern near the center of the county, which would later become Rockville. The newly formed Montgomery County supplied arms, food, and forage for the Continental Army during the Revolution, in addition to soldiers.
In 1791, portions of Montgomery County, including Georgetown, were ceded to form the new District of Columbia, along with portions of Prince George's County, Maryland, as well as parts of Virginia that were later returned to Virginia.
In 1828, construction on the C&O Canal commenced and was completed in 1850. Throughout the 19th century, agriculture dominated the economy in Montgomery County, with slaves playing a significant role. In the 1850s, crop production shifted away from tobacco and toward corn. Montgomery County was important in the abolitionist movement, with slave Josiah Henson, who wrote about his experiences in a memoir which became the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Josiah, the inspiration for the character "Uncle Tom", was a slave in the county and a slave cabin where he is believed to have spent time still stands at the end of a driveway off Old Georgetown Road.
Until 1860, only private schools existed in Montgomery County. Initially, schools for European American students were built, and in 1872 schools for African-Americans were added.
Like most of Maryland, the county's southern sympathies resulted in its being occupied by Union forces during the Civil War.
In 1873, the Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opened, with a route between Washington, D.C. and Point of Rocks, Maryland. The railroad spurred development at Takoma Park, Kensington, Garrett Park, and Chevy Chase.
On July 1, 1997, Montgomery County annexed a portion of Prince George's County, after residents of Takoma Park, which spanned both counties, voted to be entirely within the more affluent Montgomery County.
The county has a number of sites on the National Register of Historic Places.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 507 square miles (1,313 km 2 ), of which 496 square miles (1,285 km 2 ) is land and 12 square miles (31 km 2 ) is water.
Adjacent jurisdictions
- Frederick County (northwest)
- Howard County (northeast)
- Prince George's County (southeast)
- Washington, D.C. (south)
- Loudoun County, Virginia (west)
- Fairfax County, Virginia (southwest)
National protected areas
- Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park (part)
- Clara Barton National Historic Site
- George Washington Memorial Parkway (part)
Climate
The southern reaches of Montgomery County, near Washington, D.C., lie within the Humid subtropical climate zone, with hot, humid summers and mild to chilly winters with plentiful precipitation year-round. The central and northern portions of the county lie further from any significant body of water, and lie in the transition zone between Humid subtropical and Humid continental climate zones. The average yearly precipitation is 43.1 inches (109 cm). The average yearly snowfall for the county as a whole is 14.3 inches (36 cm). Areas in the north and west receive more snow, with Boyds at the extreme north in the county receiving a median annual snowfall of 23.0 inches (58 cm) compared to 11.1 inches (28 cm) for Rockville.
Demographics
As of the 2000 census, there were 873,341 people, 324,565 households, and 224,274 families residing in the county. The population density was 1,762 per square mile (680 /km 2 ). (The Census Bureau has since estimated that the population grew to just over 950,000 by 2008.) In 2000, there were 334,632 housing units at an average density of 675 per square mile (261 /km 2 ).
The racial makeup of the county was:
- 64.78% White
- 15.14% African American
- 0.29% Native American
- 11.3% Asian
- 0.05% Pacific Islander
- 5.0% from other races
- 3.45% from two or more races.
In addition, 11.52% of the population was Hispanic or Latino, of any race. (Montgomery County has the largest Hispanic community
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