The Streetcar Line

The development and entrepreneurial history of North Brentwood–a “streetcar suburb”–owes much to the establishment of the trolley line which preceded the town’s incorporation. Completed in 1898, the tracks were laid just east of the five Randall and Johnson family dwellings along what is now Rhode Island Avenue, while a culvert was constructed to carry the mill race beneath the tracks. At this time, the two operating streetcar companies merged to form the City and Suburban Railway Company. The first through electric car service from Washington to Laurel opened in 1902 with stops in Mount Rainier, Brentwood, Hyattsville, Riverdale Park, College Park, Berwyn, Branchville, and Beltsville in addition to North Brentwood. The convenient new route to the District encouraged the growth of what was then Randalltown, with five additional homes built along the streetcar line by 1904.

In the decades following the town’s incorporation as North Brentwood in 1924, the No. 82 streetcar line continued to provide residents with essential access to the city and other Black neighborhoods, running from the Treasury Building in downtown D.C. to Laurel. This proved useful for residents with jobs in government offices as well as roaming businesspeople. Eleanor Traynham described the streetcar route she would take with her father, James Curtis Thomas, who sold J.R. Watkins products to area residents:

We would go out early Saturday evenings, catch the streetcar right down here on Webster and Rhode Island Avenue, and we would ride to Melrose and get off and go visit [my father’s] customer there, and drop off whatever product they wanted,” she recalled. “…Then we would move on up to Hyattsville. And once we attended to the people right on the streetcar track, we would cross the railroad track and go over to East Hyattsville, then come back across the railroad to the streetcar line and take the car up to Lakeland.

The streetcar also helped to sustain the town’s nightlife, bringing visitors from out of town into North Brentwood to attend dances and live band performances. It even served law enforcement: Bernard Tilghman, Maryland’s first Black sheriff, was known to shuttle detainees from North Brentwood to the Hyattsville jail.

Segregation and hostility in White neighborhoods prevented many North Brentwood residents from enjoying the full mobility the streetcar presented to White passengers. According to Arthur Dock, “If you got off the trolley car in Mount Rainier to save eight cents, you were going to have difficulty in the walk home.” As another resident recalled, “[Black residents] could take the streetcar or bus into the District but [never] get off until the District line.”

The No. 82 streetcar line ran under several names through the decades: the City and Suburban Railway; Washington, Berwyn, and Laurel Railway; the Capital Transit Company; and finally, D.C. Transit. By the late fifties, Brentwood residents had expressed a desire for the tracks to be removed to make Rhode Island Avenue a dual roadway. Despite attempts from the Prince George’s Civic Federation to save the trolley system, the No. 82 streetcar line closed in 1958, marking the beginning of the end of the D.C.-area streetcar system altogether. The remaining lines closed in 1962 to make way for a new all-bus transit system. The last remnants of the No. 82 streetcar route can be experienced on foot or bike via the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail, which traces only part of the original line and extends to the Lakeland Neighborhood of College Park. The history of the streetcar line is explored in an illuminating video created by students for the Prince George’s County Historical Society, which can be viewed here.

Sources

No. 82 Streetcar. Date unknown. (Hyattsville Wire)

D.C. Transit System, Inc Guide Map. Date unknown. The Rhode Island Trolley Car Line