Arts & Entertainment
Then & Now
A snapshot of Hyattsville's past and what it has become. Patch will run this feature each week.
Local businessmen Benjamin Franklin Guy, Thomas Parker and Jeremiah Bartholow purchased 10 acres on Locust Avenue (now 42nd Place) in 1866 just south of Christopher Hyatt's store at the intersection of the Baltimore-Washington Turnpike and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
Within a year the property was subdivided and improved with five identical vernacular Italianate cottages assessed at $8,000. Known as Cottage Square, the houses served as investment properties well into the twentieth century. These two, though altered, are what is left of this very early development.