March 29, 2024

When Lexington Park Was New

Posted by The Slackwater Center
By Viki VolkOne of The Flattops
 

In 1942, the US Navy purchased 6,412 acres on Cedar Point in the Patuxent River for $712,000.

By the 1950s, “construction was so intense pilots from Andrews were told, ‘just get up there, look for the clouds of dust and go in that direction’,” reports Julia King.

Ms. King is the reigning force behind Slackwater, an extensive series of oral histories about Southern Maryland, a peninsula pivotal in the Revolutionary, Civil and Second World Wars.

The quote above was drawn from a collection titled “The Instant City.” That name describes what happens when a Navy base was constructed virtually overnight and as a result simultaneously created a rather hodgepodge kind of town surrounding it.

And so very much of it was wonderful, say the voices Ms. King relays in her video selections here. The stories include fond remembrances of the Flattops, the housing community built across a narrow paved road from the one base gate at the  Great Mills Road and Route 235 intersection. The community was an award-winning design by a renown architect of the 1950s.

“It was like a castle to us,” Ms. King quotes Doug Medgar’s oral history.  “It really was. Everyone was happy to live there.”

The Navy sold the property in 1963 to Don Chamberlain. Subsequent overflight zoning laws supported by the Navy were adopted in the 1970s by St. Mary’s County, which placed the property in a non-conforming use category. The property fell into ruin, a condition the new owners blamed upon the overflight zoning. Non-conforming use zoning is viewed as an unfavorable risk for construction loans because the value of the property is dependent upon outside restrictions.

Ultimately, the county purchased the property in 2004 when structural conditions were deemed unsafe.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R1zHrYOu34]

To learn more about the history of Lexington Park, Md., visit the Slackwater archive.

Comments
5 Responses to “When Lexington Park Was New”
  1. Bill Rymer says:

    Factual error/typo: The Navy purchased about 10 square miles (something over 6000 acres) NOT 66,412 acres which would be around 100 square miles.

    Interesting article.

  2. Publisher says:

    Thank you Mr. Rymer !!!!! Noted & corrected. My error, not Ms. King’s.
    -VV

  3. Fritz Friday says:

    Julia King is a genius….. She has done so much for Southern Maryland with respect to our history. She is a professor at St. Mary’s College but actually does field work every Summer if she gets the funding. She isn’t just a talker, she gets things done. She is a Doer! A wonderful asset for us, but a real jewel for St. Mary’s College!

  4. Jason Babcock says:

    So there are some timeline issues here unfortunately.
    It was in the 1940s when people reported seeing dust clouds from construction at Cedar Point.
    It was in 1963 that the General Services Administration sold the Lexington Park neighborhood to Don Chamberlain who renamed it Lexington Manor. Chamberlain planted the cherry trees that are still there today.
    St. Mary’s County government purchased Lexington Manor in 2004 for $6.5 million.

  5. Publisher says:

    Thank you Jason! Corrections made! The St. Mary’s Community Development Corp. is looking to launch a Neighborhood Genealogy for Lexington Manor at this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival – April 8 – hope Mr. Chamberlain’s cherry trees make the date too!

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