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Top of the Town
Tenleytown Heritage Trail
1 Beer, Popcorn, and Penny Candy
Suburban shopping arrived in Tenleytown when Sears, Roebuck & Co. erected a Moderne style store here in 1941. The sleek façade demonstrated the latest in department store design.
Sears was the second Tenleytown business -- after Giant Food -- to offer rooftop parking. The aromas of popcorn, half smokes, and doughnuts led customers to Sears' entrance/penthouse snack bar. Attracting shoppers from the city and nearby Maryland, Sears ushered in Tenleytown's modern commercial era.
Sears replaced the three-story former Tenleytown Inn, which, beginning in the mid-1800s, was a stopping point for farmers and merchants traveling on the Georgetown-Frederick (Maryland) Pike. When William Achterkirchen ran the inn for owner Christian Heurich in the early 1900s, Tenleytowners arrived with their growlers -- tin buckets with lids -- to carry out the inn's popular brew. By 1918 innkeeper Howard Crandall had adapted the inn for his Hilltop Service Station, Tenleytown's first gas station.
While Tenleytown celebrated the arrival of Metrorail in 1984, it came at a cost. The east station entrance replaced the Burrows-Mostow building, built in 1900 as commercial space with an apartment upstairs. It also replaced Joe's Variety Shop. Generations of Tenleytown children had flocked to Joe Gould's narrow store, packed floor to ceiling with toys, games, penny candy, and school supplies.
The William R. Singleton Masonic Lodge has occupied 4431 Wisconsin Avenue since 1909. Its members follow Freemasonry, an ancient fraternal organization rooted in the building trades and dedicated to good works and fellowship. |