Kensington Celebrates the International Day of the Book Festival Sunday April 26th 2015 * Howard Avenue, Old Town Kensington * 11am-4pm

 
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF KENSINGTON

Where the train still stops…And the people still walk.

The area around the Rock Creek basin where Kensington is located was primarily agricultural until 1873, when the B&O Railroad completed the Metropolitan Branch which traversed Montgomery County. A community arose where the new railroad line intersected the old Rockville-to-Bladensburg road. This early settlement was first known as Knowles Station. In the early 1890s, Washington, D.C. developer Brainard Warner began purchasing land parcels to build a planned Victorian community, complete with church, library, and a local newspaper. Fascinated by a recent trip to London, Warner first named his town Kensington Park. Upon incorporation in 1894, the town was renamed Kensington. The historic core of Kensington was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as the Kensington Historic District in 1980.

Initially Kensington was a summer refuge for Washington, D.C., residents wishing to escape the capital's humid summers. As years passed and its residents increasingly remained year round, Kensington evolved into a commuter suburb. The large southernmost section originally mapped out by Warner remains largely unchanged since inception, and is a historically preserved zone. Indeed the only major changes in the town's basic layout have been the bridging over of the original railroad crossing in 1937, and the extension and widening of Connecticut Avenue, the town's main thoroughfare, in 1957.

Kensington Book Festival | 3786 Howard Ave, Kensington MD 20895 | 301-949-9416 | kensingtonbookfestival15@gmail.com

Website created by
Debi Hammack