Despite the White Flint area’s new name, a county-organized website set to launch soon won’t forget its history.
PikeDistrict.org will serve as the official website for all things Pike District — the moniker generated from a branding study of the White Flint area paid for major developers.
Ken Hartman, director of the county’s Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center, has been overseeing development of the website along with the White Flint Downtown Advisory Committee.
On Thursday, Hartman posted the “History of the Pike District” section that will be part of it.
It includes info on the origins of Old Georgetown Road (a route once traveled by Native Americans and British General Edward Braddock) and Rockville Pike (a route associated with Confederate General Jubal Early’s 1864 raid on Washington).
The name White Flint pops up. According to the history, the first known use of that name was by the White Flint Country Club, which opened in 1930 on Rockville Pike near what’s now Nicholson Lane.
Hank Dietle’s (11010 Rockville Pike) has been in operation since 1916 and holds Montgomery County’s first beer and wine license. A trolley used to connect Georgetown and Rockville until the 1930s, along the route that’s now the Bethesda Trolley Trail.
The Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro Station opened in July 1984. The White Flint and Twinbrook stations opened in December of that year, perhaps the biggest reason for the redevelopment that’s bringing big changes to the area today.
The website, designed by the same contractor who worked on the Bethesda Urban Partnership’s Bethesda.org, will function in much the same way.
The first phase of the site will include a restaurant directory, retail directory, direct link to the Pike District’s Twitter feed and updates from local news outlets.
It was originally set up as MetroWhiteFlint.org. The Downtown Advisory Committee agreed to adopt the Pike District label after it was presented in December.