When Garrett Park was incorporated in the spring of 1898, its population was approximately 175 (the figure in the 1900 census), and there were 37 late-Victorian “cottages.”

The people and the cottages had arrived in the dozen years since The Metropolitan Investment and Building Company laid out the town and began selling lots and houses in 1886. Many of the properties no doubt were purchased by some of the 600 investors in the company, mostly residents of the District of Columbia. A one-room schoolhouse went up in 1893, and a railroad station materialized the following year; soon there was a chapel and a store.

The town had a strong start because it was located along the Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Completed in 1873 and running from Washington to Point of Rocks, Maryland, the railroad had opened up Montgomery County to suburbanization. The company ran nine commuter trains per day with the hope that residential growth would be stimulated and passenger and freight traffic would grow.

By 1903, however, the severe economic depressions of the 1890s began to take their toll; railroad officials and real estate investors realized that the boom was over. Train service was cut to three runs per day, and no more “cottages” were built. A small quiet town remained.

From then until the end of World War II, building in the town was sporadic. One spurt during the 1920s resulted in the construction of 45 houses—called “Chevy Houses” because a new Chevrolet could be included in the mortgage.

After World War II, the town grew, and grew, and grew. Today, the number of residents stands at about 1,000. The house count is 358, including the original “cottages,” the “Chevy Houses,” and ranch, cape cod, split-level, and early contemporary styles, all comfortably sited along quiet streets amid hundreds of trees. In 1975, Garrett Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. And the commuter trains still run, now courtesy of the Maryland Department of Transportation. Garrett Park Train Station was formerly a passenger waiting room at Landover, Maryland. It was moved piece-by-piece and reassembled at Garrett Park by the Montgomery County Conservation Corps in 1989.