Takoma Park

A train station was located here on the B&O railroad in the 1880s, around which the Victorian community of Takoma Park and neighboring Takoma, D.C. developed, at a time when much of D.C. was still farmland. Takoma Park quickly became the central commercial area for farmers, commuters and gentry commuting into Washington, D.C. by train and streetcar. Now it is a vibrant satellite city with a "small town" ambiance and a reputation for post-1960s era counterculture political activism. Founded by B.F. Gilbert in 1887, the hilly town became a haven for Seventh-Day Adventists, who moved their World Headquarters here from Battle Creek, Michigan (home of the Matthew Broderick cereal drama Road to Wellville). At the turn of the century, they built several downtown churches, a small Christian liberal arts college, a printing press, a vegetarian health food co-op, elementary schools, and a sanitarium. Since then, gentrification has brought in academics and political consultants who restored many of the area's group houses into Victorian mansions. Takoma Park's legendary socialist mayor, Sammy Abdul Abbott, was widely known in the 1960s for fighting successfully (alongside future DC Mayor Marion Barry and other members of SNCC) to prevent Takoma Park and central D.C. from being torn apart by a 10-lane freeway, which was projected to bisect Dupont Circle and at one point, the Lincoln Memorial. His slogan was "No white men's roads through black men's homes....