Landmark MB&T Bank For Lease or Sale
In the heart of the “Instant City” that became Lexington Park, the historic Maryland Bank & Trust Building is in tiptop condition and available for rent or sale.
The building’s southern facing atrium entry leads into a spacious second floor filled with natural light, a conference room, and executive suite. The building has security features befitting a bank, and some history as well. Through its vault passed the fortunes of entrepreneurs from the WWII test pilots who stuck around. These risk-takers transformed empty farmland into housing, infrastructure, and retail sufficient to support what has become NAS Patuxent River.
One of those entrepreneurs was former Marine Lt. Col. John T. “Big Dog” Daugherty, a graduate of the first test pilot class out of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. He came to be known as Jack.
“Jack and I never had any plan except to return to [Kentucky] after the war,” his wife Kay told Jack D. Ellis, who includes Jack Daugherty among the biographies of Eastern Kentucky’s Soldiers of WWII in his collection, “Patriots & Heroes.” “In 1945 during his tour of duty at the new Naval Base Test Pilot School, we lived in Lexington Park and I taught school. It was at that time my husband recognized the potential for future growth in the area,” she said.
Jack Daugherty had been a war hero as a pilot in the Pacific before he became a test pilot. At Patuxent River he served among the likes of John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, and Alan Shephard.
“Those were the glory days and romance of Naval aviation when we had propeller planes instead of jets,” Mr. Daugherty told his biographer. “We were just a happy go lucky group of Naval aviators doing what we dearly loved – flying.”
His enthusiasm and energy was indicative of the entrepreneurial spirit that invaded the town becoming known as Lexington Park. Jack began opening businesses as soon as he left the service. He started with a service station in 1946, and then an appliance store, a TV store, a furniture business, a moving and storage company, a feeder airline for passengers, mail, and freight, and in 1950 he bought a newspaper, the Weekly Enterprise. In 1959 he founded a bank.
The Maryland Bank & Trust Building is two blocks from Gate 2 of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station on Shangri-La Drive. The building shares a professional campus with Bank Square Building, recently renovated by WorkSpaces. The campus is adjacent to the colossal renovation overhauling the former Raley’s Furniture store and the civic center of Lexington Park including the Bay District Volunteer Fire Department and banquet hall, and the Lexington Park Library.
Numerous and varied eateries are within walking distance. St. Inie’s Coffee is across the street with fresh-roasted, responsibly sourced coffee.
Call 301-502-4789 for more information.
