The west side of Georgia, 8200 & 8400 Blocks*

*There is no 8300 block on the west side of Georgia Avenue.

First Bank, First Heist

Silver Spring's first bank robbery occurred in 1928, here on the southwest corner of Georgia Avenue and Oak Street (today’s Bonifant Street).

Commerce in this block began on September 1, 1925, when the Colonial Revival-style Silver Spring National Bank, at 8252 Georgia Avenue, became the first business to open. Founded in 1910, the move of the community’s first bank (from the corner of today’s Georgia and Sligo avenues) was necessitated by Georgia Avenue’s widening and construction of the original “viaduct,” or Baltimore & Ohio Railroad underpass.

The bank robbery occurred here on Oct. 27, 1928 when Takoma Park, Md. resident Hugh L. McDaniel told assistant cashier Fred L. Lutes to “Give me all you’ve got.” Lutes handed over $2,200 but followed up with two shots from his pistol. Cashier Ira C. Whitacre joined in with three shots from his gun before running outside and firing two more at the bandit escaping in a taxi. Within hours McDaniel was apprehended and all but about $10 of the stolen money was recovered. Two months later McDaniel, a photographer, was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in jail.

In 1938, the Bank merged with and saved the failing Takoma Park Bank and was renamed The Suburban National Bank.  Expanded business resulted that year in the addition of a 16-foot-deep Classical–Revival  limestone façade designed by the noted Tilghman Moyer Co. of Allentown, Pa. A second merger occurred in 1951 with Prince George’s Trust Co. Renamed “The Suburban Trust Co.,” with Silver Spring as its headquarters, a rear addition in the International Style was added. The Bank was National Register of Historic Properties eligible, but the Bank, Theater, and other Heritage 1920s buildings on this block were demolished in 2015.

Spirited Entertainment

Silver Spring’s first movie theater, the 500-seat SECO (Suburban Electrical Company), which opened on Nov. 7, 1927 with the silent film comedy “Fireman, Save My Child,” was located at 8242-8244 Georgia Avenue. The theater, renamed Roth’s Silver Spring in 1953, closed on May 31, 1991 with a 99¢ screening of the 1990 comedy “Home Alone.” Next door sat the Cissel Building, which originally housed an automobile showroom on the first floor and several businesses on the second. Last occupied by the Silver Restaurant, a fire, circa 1972, destroyed the structure.

Located across Bonifant Street was the Silver Spring Liquor Dispensary at 8400 Georgia Avenue. Here a crowd of 1,500 gathered late on Dec. 6, 1933 to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition, initiated in 1920 to prohibit “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” in the U.S. (the policy had been in effect in Montgomery County since 1880). In 1946 a second story was added to the structure and it was named the Kessinger Building. Guardian Federal Savings and Loan Association became the primary tenant of the building in 1953 and it was renamed the Guardian Building. Razed in the late 1970s for the widening of Bonifant Street, a portion of building’s vertically stacked quoins remain as part of the building next door.

Twister (1923 version)

Not on Georgia Avenue, but only a block away where the parking garage now stands between Ramsey and Dixon avenues, a tornado touched down on Thursday, April 5, 1923, at approximately 3 p.m. It was “over in no time” as the Evening Star reported. It lasted less than a minute. Its path of destruction measured an estimated 600 feet wide and a quarter of a mile long. It miraculously killed no one, but injured four people, destroyed five houses, and partially wrecked a dozen others, with damages totaling more than $100,000 (in 1923 dollars).