Maryland Municipal League Geotrl Washington Grove Traditional Cache

Welcome to the Town of Washington Grove!

Washington Grove is known as the “Town Within A Forest.” Almost entirely surrounded by new housing developments that have changed the area's character from rural farmland to the sprawling housing tracts and strip malls of a Washington, D.C. dormitory community, Washington Grove is an oasis of trees and walkways where people know their neighbors and value their way of life. 'Grovers' have a history of uniting to resist threats on the town’s character posed by the surrounding area’s rapid urbanization.

Washington Grove is listed on the National Register of Historic Places both for its humanistic layout and for the way the town was founded. In the early 1870s, shortly after the B&O Railroad’s Metropolitan Branch was extended from Washington D.C. to Gaithersburg, Maryland, a group of Methodists purchased land nearby as a site for a camp meeting. In 1873 the first meeting was held in a rainstorm at the “Sacred Circle” in what is now the center of town. Tents were pitched to protect the camp meeting attendees. As more meetings ensued and their occupants began to stay for longer and longer periods, the tents were converted to cottages constructed to echo the traditional tent shape. Herein lies the origin of one of the Grove’s most distinctive features, the oddly-shaped, tightly-spaced homes radiating out from the Sacred Circle. While the smorgasbord of later additions on these houses gives the older part of town an eccentric and fanciful personality, each of these older houses has a small, tent-shaped core dating from the first cottage construction. They often had steeply peaked roofs with high windows and the rooms only had walls, no ceilings. Cooling breezes flowed through the houses and vacated any summer heat. This nature has been lost in many cottages that have been remodeled inside for year-round occupation and for an additional floor of rooms occupying the once lofty interior structures.

The Circle, looking west; house in center is 8 in the Circle.

The cache is hidden in a way that is somewhat reflected by the local area and houses. Please enjoy your visit to our fair community and take in some of the history of the “Town Within a Forest”.

Please park at the suggested parking coordinates and follow the walking trails to the cache hide location.

Parking Coordinates: N 39° 08.418 W 077° 10.553

Thanks to TripMD for helping with the original MML hide!