BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park

MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. ACORN_160908_008.JPG: The Silver Spring The community of Silver Spring derives its name from a mica flecked sparking spring which existed in the immediate area and is now commemorated in this park. Francis Preston Blair, who came to Maryland from Kentucky to publish a newspaper in support of President Andrew Jackson, found the spring while horseback riding in 1842. Enchanted with the spot, Blair built his summer home, also called "Silver Spring," near the site. The rustic acorn- shaped gazebo is typical of lawn structures dating from early to mid-eighteenth century and is believed to have been on Blair's estate. Restored in 1997, through a public/private partnership, the park will continue to provide beauty in the community of Silver Spring. Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning
2. ACORN_160908_017.JPG: The community of Silver Spring, Maryland, derives its name from this spring, discovered in 1840 by Francis Preston Blair and his daughter, Elizabeth, while riding on horseback in the woods beyond Washington. Rays of sun on mica sand particles in this water caused Mr. Blair to name it "the silver spring." This also identified his estate and summer home built in 1842. This park was acquired in 1942 by the Maryland- National Guard Park and Planning Commission. It was restored and dedicated on May 23, 1955, by the following organizations "as an ever-flowing tribute to the men and women responsible for the greatness of Silver Spring, Maryland, and its bright future through civic and community service." The Allied Civic Group, Inc. The Silver Spring Inter-club Council The American Institute of Architects (Potomac Valley Chapter) The Silver Spring Board of Trade The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission
3. ACORN_160908_058.JPG: In 1842, Francis Preston Blair built a country house very near this park and divided his time between his 300 acre farm and his city residence "Blair House," which is now the President's official guest house in Washington, D.C. Blair was a powerful newspaper publisher and a friend of President Andrew Jackson. Blair called his estate "Silver Spring," after a beautiful natural spring on the property which bubbled up through mica rock, giving it the appearance of being lined with silver. The town that grew up near Blair's farm became known as Silver Spring.
4. ACORN_160908_091.JPG: Washington, D.C. was raided in 1864 by 14,000 Confederate troops led by General Jubal Early. Skirmishes took place in Silver Spring and Washington, with the attack finally being stopped at Fort Stevens -- just a few miles south of this site. Seventeen of the Confederate soldiers killed in this battle are buried at Grace Episcopal Church on Georgia Avenue. The Confederate officers under General Early made their headquarters at the Blair residence, "Silver Spring," which was ransacked. The nearby home of Montgomery Blair, then Postmaster General of the United States, was burned to the ground.
5. ACORN_160908_115.JPG: The first decades of this century saw Silver Spring transformed from a 19th century rural village into an early 20th century residential community and center of commerce. Major E. Brooke Lee and Captain Frank L. Hewitt, returning World War I veterans, were influential in laying out the first subdivisions in Silver Spring during the 1920s and establishing major commercial and civic institutions. One of the earliest and most substantial buildings to be constructed along Georgia Avenue was the first National Guard Armory. It was built in 1914 for Company K of the 1st Maryland Infantry. It has been remodeled and now houses the Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Department.
6. ACORN_160908_123.JPG: One of the most significant reasons for Silver Spring's growth was its location along the Metropolitan Branch of the B&O Railroad. The railroad line stimulated the development of outlying commuter suburbs. It also allowed the County's agricultural products to be transported to market with greater speed and ease. The trains began operation on the B&O line in 1873 and the original Silver Spring train station was built in 1878. This ornate building, designed by E. Francis Baldwin, stood until 1945 and was replaced by a station in the Colonial Revival style.
7. ACORN_160908_143.JPG: Silver Spring's heyday as a commercial center began in 1938 with the opening of the Silver Theatre and Shopping complex, designed by John Eberson. These streamlined buildings housed a wide variety of shops, as well as a 1,100 seat movie theater, and were among the first in the region that were built to accommodate the use of automobiles. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the county's population exploded and Silver Spring grew into a major shopping district with large department stores like Hecht's, J.C. Penney's, and Jelleff's. This monumental growth made Silver Spring not only a major suburban community, but also an important economic center for the entire state.
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Wikipedia Description: Acorn Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Acorn Park is a park in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland that features an acorn-shaped gazebo and an artificial grotto. The site is thought to be the location of the mica-flecked spring that inspired Francis Preston Blair to name his estate "Silver Spring."

The gazebo was constructed in 1842 by Benjamin C. King.

Blair's son-in-law, Samuel Phillips Lee, had the stone grotto built at the site of the spring in 1894. It originally contained a statue of a Grecian nymph.

It was purchased by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in 1942, and refurbished and rededicated in 1955 .

The park is located at the intersection of East-West Highway and Newell Road, in south Silver Spring.
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2013_MD_SS_Acorn: MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park (20 photos from 2013)
- 2010_MD_SS_Acorn: MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park (16 photos from 2010)
- 2007_MD_SS_Acorn: MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park (9 photos from 2007)
- 2005_MD_SS_Acorn: MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park (6 photos from 2005)
- 2004_MD_SS_Acorn: MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park (5 photos from 2004)
- 1997_MD_SS_Acorn: MD -- Silver Spring -- Acorn Park (6 photos from 1997)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Park (Local)]
2016 photos: Seven relatively short trips this year: two Civil War Trust conference (Gettysburg, PA and West Point, NY, with a side-trip to New York City), my 11th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including sites in Utah, Nevada, and California), a quick trip to Michigan for Uncle Wayne's funeral, two additional trips to New York City, and a Civil Rights site trip to Alabama during the November elections. Being in places where people died to preserve the rights of minority voters made the Trumputin election even more depressing. Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: just over 610,000.
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