Silver Spring Entrepreneurs
“THREE ACE PROMOTERS of Silver Spring in those days [1920s & 30s], they had a finger in almost every pie.” So wrote editor Blair Lee III in the August 29, 1947 Maryland News describing his father E. Brooke Lee, James H. Cissel and Frank L. Hewitt.
Cissel and the elder Lee presided over two businesses that played the seminal role in the growth and reputation of Silver Spring in the early 20th century. Cissel’s Silver Spring Building Supply Co. and Lee’s North Washington Realty Co. originally resided at 8222-26 Georgia Avenue, constructed in 1922. These two pioneers envisioned, built, and sold commercial, institutional and residential properties throughout Silver Spring and Montgomery County. Together with Hewitt, vice president of the Silver Spring Building Supply Co., the trio collaborated in the development of eight neighboring subdivisions during the 1920s onward.
From 1970 to 1987 this building was home to Track Recorders, a pioneering and top audio recording studio operated and ultimately owned by Mark Greenhouse. Popular with both local and national musicians, artists who recorded here include Linda Ronstadt, Marvin Gaye, Gloria Gaynor, and Peaches and Herb.
The exterior of this landmark Colonial Revival-style brick structure remained virtually intact until 2009 when a renovation dismantled significant architectural elements unique to Silver Spring. Originally featured were gray slate roofline canopies, two- and three-over-one double-hung wood sash windows, front entrance doors with stone stoops, and two large display windows facing Georgia Ave.
King of Burgers
“BUY ’EM BY THE BAG,” the motto urged. For more than half a century, hamburger-hungry customers came to Maryland’s first Little Tavern to do just that.
Harry F. Duncan founded Little Tavern Shops, Inc., which specialized in 5¢ little hamburgers, in Louisville, Ky., in 1927. The following year he moved his operation to Washington, D.C. and within a decade had 22 shops. Maryland’s flagship Little Tavern #1 opened in 1938 at 8230 Georgia Avenue. By 1941, Duncan moved his corporate headquarters to an Art Deco-style brick building at 1007 Ripley Street, located behind the Georgia Avenue shop. The combination Tudor-cottage/Art Deco-style Little Taverns became iconic examples of roadside architecture in the Washington-Baltimore region.
In 1957, the Montgomery County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People conducted a survey of 18 cafes—nine in Silver Spring, nine in Bethesda. Six were cited for refusing sit-down service to African-Americans, including the Little Taverns in each community (they only offered carry-out). The other four businesses were in Bethesda. Segregation in Washington, D.C. restaurants had been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in 1953. Maryland law had no similar provision until 1962, when Montgomery County’s Public Accommodations Ordinance went into effect.
Find more information at these links: MoCo/humanrights and MoCo/humanrights/civil_right_progress. The photo gallery above includes a 1957 Washington Post article about a NAACP investigation of Montgomery County restaurants’ treatment of Blacks and a 1958 listing of restaurants that would serve “without discrimination.”
In 1984, Silver Spring’s Little Tavern was placed on the Locational Atlas of Historic Sites, later removed due to lack of owner approval. Closing in 1991, successive restaurants occupied the building. In 2003, a new owner of the 672-sq. ft. building tried to auction it on E-bay, stipulating it be moved. Preservation organizations endeavored to preserve Little Tavern through historical designation on-site or moving it. Ultimately, Little Tavern’s 200+ pre-fabricated exterior porcelain enamel panels and other architectural elements were preserved and given to the National Capital Trolley Museum in Colesville, Md., for potential reconstruction.
