Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region and a national center for medical research. According to the 2020 census, the community had a population of 68,056.
Etymology It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda.
History Bethesda is located in the traditional territory of the indigenous Native Piscataway and Nacotchtank at the time of European colonization. Fur trader Henry Fleet became the first European to visit the area, reaching it by sailing up the Potomac River. He stayed with the Piscataway tribe from 1623 to 1627, either as a guest or prisoner (historical accounts differ). Fleet eventually secured funding for another expedition to the region and was later granted proprietary rights to 2,000 acres of land in the nascent colony and became a member of Maryland's colonial legislature. Raids from the Senecas and Susquehannock resulted in the creation of the Maryland division of Rangers in 1694 to patrol the frontier.
Most settlers in colonial Maryland were tenant farmers who paid their rent in tobacco, and colonists continued to expand farther north in search of fertile land. Henry Darnall (1645–1711) surveyed a area in 1694 which became the first land grant in Bethesda. Tobacco farming was the primary way of life in Bethesda throughout the 1700s. The city avoided seeing action during the Revolutionary War, although it became a supply region for the fledgling Continental Navy. The establishment of Washington, D.C., in 1790 deprived Montgomery County of its economic center at Georgetown, although the event had little effect on the small farmers throughout Bethesda.
Between 1805 and 1821, Bethesda became a rural way station after the development of the Washington and Rockville Turnpike, which carried tobacco and other products between Georgetown and Rockville, and north to Frederick. The Bethesda Meeting House, a Presbyterian church, was built in 1820. The church burned in 1849 and was rebuilt the same year about south, and its former location became the Cemetery of the Bethesda Meeting House.
In 1852, the postmaster general established a post office in the area and appointed Rev. A. R. Smith its first postmaster."Maryland New Post-Office". The Baltimore Sun. January 7, 1852. p. 2. By 1862, a small settlement had grown around a store and tollhouse along the turnpike known as "Darcy's Store" for the store's owner, William E. Darcy. It consisted of a blacksmith shop, a church and school, and a few houses and stores. In 1871, postmaster Robert Franck renamed the settlement for the church.
A streetcar line was established in 1890 and suburbanization increased in the early 1900s, and Bethesda grew in population. Communities near railroad lines had grown the fastest during the 19th century. In 1910, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad completed its Georgetown Branch line from Silver Spring to Georgetown, including a storage yard there and multiple sidings serving industries in Bethesda. B&O successor CSX ceased train service on the line in 1985, so the county transformed it into a trail in the rails-to-trails movement. The tracks were removed in 1994, and the first part of the trail was opened in 1998; it has become the most used rail-trail in the United States, averaging over one million users per year."In Bethesda, railroad track remnants show downtown's former industrial side", The Washington Post, August 29, 2012
Subdivisions began to appear on old farmland in the late 19th century, becoming the neighborhoods of Drummond, Woodmont, Edgemoor, and Battery Park. Farther north, several wealthy men made Rockville Pike famous for its mansions. These included Brainard W. Parker ("Cedarcroft", 1892), James Oyster ("Strathmore", 1899), George E. Hamilton ("Hamilton House", 1904; now the Stone Ridge School), Luke I. Wilson ("Tree Tops", 1926), Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor ("Wild Acres", 1928–29), and George Freeland Peter ("Stone House", 1930). In 1930, Armistead Peter's pioneering manor house "Winona" (1873) became the clubhouse of the Woodmont Country Club on land that is now part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus. Merle Thorpe's mansion "Pook's Hill" (1927, razed 1948) became the home-in-exile of the Norwegian royal family during World War II."Norway Buys Pooks Hill For Crown Prince's Home", The New York Times, August 2, 1941, p. 6
Before the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, restrictive covenants were used in Bethesda to exclude racial and ethnic minorities—primarily African-Americans, but also Asian-Americans and ethnic groups regarded as "Semitic", including Armenians, Jews, Iranians, Greeks, Turks, and Syrians. In practice, covenants excluding "Semitic races" were generally used to exclude Jews as Montgomery County did not have notable Armenian, Greek, Syrian, or Turkish populations at the time.
One 1938 restrictive covenant in the Bradley Woods subdivision of Bethesda said: "No part of the land hereby conveyed, shall ever be used, or occupied by or sold, demised, transferred, conveyed, unto, or in trust for, leased, or rented, or given to negroes, or any person or persons of negro blood or extraction or to any person of the Semitic Race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Armenians, Jews, Hebrews, Persians, Syrians, Greeks and Turks, or to any person of the Mongolian Race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolians, except that this paragraph shall not be held to exclude partial occupancy of the premises by domestic servants of the purchaser or purchasers." World War II and the subsequent expansion of government fed the rapid growth of Bethesda. Both the National Naval Medical Center (1940–42) and the NIH complex (1948) were built just to the north of the developing downtown, and this drew government contractors, medical professionals, and other businesses to the area.
Bethesda became the major urban core and employment center of southwestern Montgomery County. This recent vigorous growth followed the 1984 expansion of Metrorail with a station in Bethesda. The Bethesda Metro Center was built over the Red Line metro rail, which opened up further commercial and residential development in the immediate vicinity.Bernstein, Alan, "Alan I. Kay, Washington area real estate magnate and philanthropist, dies at 75" , The Washington Post, June 19, 2010, In the 2000s, the strict height limits on construction in the District of Columbia led to the development of mid-and high-rise office and residential towers around the Bethesda Metro station.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , of which is land and (0.38%) is water. The main commercial corridor that passes through Bethesda is Maryland Route 355 (known as Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda and as Rockville Pike and Hungerford Drive in more northern communities), which, to the north, connects Bethesda with the communities of North Bethesda and Rockville, ending, after several name changes, in Frederick. Toward the South, Rockville Pike becomes Wisconsin Avenue near the NIH Campus and continues beyond Bethesda through Chevy Chase, Friendship Heights and into Washington, D.C., ending in Georgetown.
The area commonly known as Downtown Bethesda is centered at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue, Old Georgetown Road and East-West Highway. This intersection is about two and one-half miles from Washington, D.C.'s western boundary, making Bethesda a close-in suburb of the nation's capital. Other focal points of downtown Bethesda include the Woodmont Triangle, bordered by Old Georgetown Road (Maryland Route 187), Woodmont and Rugby Avenues, and the Bethesda Row, centered at the intersection of Woodmont Avenue and Bethesda Avenue. Much of the dense construction in that area followed the opening of the Bethesda station on the Red Line of the Washington Metro rapid transit system, also located at this intersection and the centerpiece of the Bethesda Metro Center development. The Medical Center Metro stop lies about 0.7 miles north of the Bethesda stop, Medical Center, which serves the NIH Campus, the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Demographics
Racial and ethnic composition +Bethesda CDP, Maryland – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 2000Pop 2010Pop 2020% 2000% 2010% 2020White alone (NH)45,21047,32746,29081.79%77.77%68.02%Black or African American alone (NH)1,4321,9443,0582.59%3.19%4.49%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)6459500.12%0.10%0.07%Asian alone (NH)4,3575,6478,3257.88%9.28%12.23%Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH)2437260.04%0.06%0.04%Other race alone (NH)1781934810.32%0.32%0.71%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)1,0121,5073,5751.83%2.48%5.25%Hispanic or Latino (any race)3,0004,1446,2515.43%6.81%9.19%Total55,27760,85868,056 100.00%100.00%100.00%
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Bethesda had a population of 68,056. The median age was 42.4 years. 22.1% of residents were under the age of 18 and 19.4% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 90.7 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 87.0 males age 18 and over. 24.4% of residents were foreign-born.
100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.
There were 27,812 households in Bethesda, of which 30.5% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 53.6% were married-couple households, 15.0% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 27.5% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 30.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 29,547 housing units, of which 5.9% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.9% and the rental vacancy rate was 6.2%.
2000 census As of the census of 2000, there were 55,277 people, 23,659 households, and 14,455 families residing in the CDP. The population density was . There were 24,368 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 85.86% White, 2.67% Black or African American, 0.17% Native American, 7.92% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 1.23% from other races, and 2.11% from two or more races. 5.43% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 23,659 households, out of which 28.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.4% were married couples living together, 6.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.9% were non-families. 32.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.30, and the average family size was 2.92.
In the CDP, 21.8% of the population was under the age of 18, 4.6% from 18 to 24, 29.2% from 25 to 44, 27.1% from 45 to 64, and 17.2% was 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.0 males.