BETHESDA'S NEWEST STREET TO BE NAMED AFTER ONE OF ITS OLDEST (NON-NATIVE AMERICAN) RESIDENTS

Bethesda is getting a new street, and it's named after one of the town's earliest inhabitants. Of course, Native Americans were here long before that, but I'm referring to early after the arrival of European settlers.

Willet Bridge Road will be in the future Little Falls Place townhome community in an industrial area off of Little Falls Parkway. Willet was a farmer whose property stretched from River Road (which was first a Native American trail to Edwards Ferry near Poolesville) to the vicinity of downtown Bethesda.

If the name sounds familiar, there is a tributary of Little Falls stream named after him.

5115 ($1,425,000) and 5126 ($1,375,000) Willet Bridge Road went on sale this week, but developer EYA's sales office is on Hampden Lane in downtown Bethesda.  The community itself is not yet constructed.

Street names must get final approval from public safety departments, in order to prevent confusion when responding to calls via 911 dispatch. There is a Willett Parkway near the Bethesda Pool (I don't know why it has 2 "t"s), which is also located within the former Willet farm property. But it is quite common to have the same name on a parkway, and on a second type of road - in fact, even Little Falls Parkway has a sister street in Green Acres.