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and was toll free.
Carne the flood of 1936- the highest of record. Reports from up-stream - Bridges Out! From downriver--,- Point of Rocks, Gone! But with the dawn our bridge was still standing - a Ii ttle weak, but still intact. Eventually, the state replaced the over-sixtyyear old bridge with the present concrete bridge, dedicated in 1955.
THE TROLLEY SYSTEM Jefferson and Frederick were at one time connected by a trolley line and eventually rails were laid the length of Potomac Street in anticipation of the connecting link from Jefferson to Brunswick via an old road not far from Compher's Restaurant at the Cross Road (180 and 17) down through what is now the Eagles Club property and Birch Woods, to near the bottom of Central Avenue. On May 9, 1912, the Brunswick and Frederick Railroad Company requested a franchise to operate an electric railroad on certain streets of Brunswick. This was approved May 27. Eventually, the line was laid. "Believe It or Not" by Ripley once featured "the town with the trolley tracks, but never a trolley."
S - Abstracted from an article written by Frank Spitzer, appearing in The Blade-Times, a former weekly Brunswick newspaper. W-MMM
BRIDGE TOLL AND TROLLEY TRACKS
THE TRACKS WILL GO
On November 1, 1938, the Brunswick Council voted to remove the rails from Potomac Street. The B&O RR and Grove Lime Company were to be requested to make bids for the rail. On July 5, 1939, the council voted to sell 90 tons of steel rails and the tub stand on Wenner's Hill (the tub itself was of wood) to Levi Lucas for $960; payment was to be made before removal of either. The origional plan for the streetcar tracks in town was owned by Dutch Burns who donated it to the Brunswick Museum.
People used to ask, Why are there trolley car tracks along Potomac Street?" (Yes, at one time, they reached from Littens to City Park.) The answer may lie within an article on page three of the Brunswick Times, September 3, 1914. Loudoun (Virginia) and Frederick Counties were being challenged to purchase the bridges at both Brunswick and Point of Rocks and drop toll charges for crossing them, because there was the possibility of an electric railway connecting Frederick and Brunswick. The bridges in question were erected at a total cost of under $100,000 for the two. The local one was built from a stock issue of $22,000 and a bond issue of $30,000, paying five and one-half percent, less taxes. If people holding stock would agree to sell, the bridge could have been purchased on a basis of par or less. County residents owned most of the stock, which was well scattered through the county. The heavy financial drain on Virginia residents hauling immense amounts of lime was pointed out, as well as the numbers of Virginia residents who shopped in Frederick County. Free toll would increase the crossings, benefiting both Frederick City and Brunswick, where most of the shopping would be done. Maryland already had an excellent system of State roads, the writer stated, with one reaching Knoxville; extending the short distance to Brunswick would also encourage tourists, hence mutually benefit both Frederick and Loudoun Counties. Business men favored "freeing" the bridge, but that did not happen until 1935.
S - THE BRUNSWICK TIMES, Sept. 3, 1914 W-MMM
THE C&O CANAL George Washington had a wonderful dream of cleaning and channeling out the Potomac River for more transportation from the West than the rafts and flat boats were providing. That dream was never realized, but a third of century after his death, the canal provided a near-answer to that dream. Brunswick is fortunate to have benefited from this dream. It has two miles of that "Magnificent Ditch" running parallel with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Both were Berlin's and Brunswick's· livelihood well into the twentieth century. Cornerstones for both the B&O and C&O were laid July 4, 1828, and both arrived in Berlin in 1834. Berlin became a "canal town" by 1888. The canal was severely damaged in the same storm of 1889 that produced the Johnstown Flood, then was rebuilt.
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