Jerry McCoy: Silver Spring's Official "Unofficial" Historian

Meet Jerry McCoy, Silver Spring's official "unofficial" historian and founder of the Silver Spring Historical Society.  A special collections librarian by day, in the Peabody Room (that houses Georgetown history) at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library, McCoy's true love is researching, documenting and archiving Silver Spring-related history.  He considers this his "second job" or as he puts it "labor of love."

As founder of the Silver Spring Historical Society, McCoy has been on a mission to "create and promote awareness and appreciation of downtown Silver Spring through sponsorship of education activities and the preservation and protection of historical sites, structures and archives," according to his blog, Silver Spring, Then and Again.

McCoy is the author of several books, including his most recent, Then and Now, Downtown Silver Spring, released October 25.  SilverSpringpatch.com contributor Katie Vernoski sat down with McCoy to find out why this Lorain, Ohio native is so interested in preserving the history of Silver Spring.

Patch:  So, why did you personally get involved in learning about the history of Silver Spring?

Jerry McCoy:  Well, I'm originally from Lorain, Ohio and I moved to the DC area in 1978.  After living in Adams Morgan for a while, my wife and I moved to Silver Spring in 1992. When I moved here, I wanted to learn about my community and so I went to the Silver Spring Library located on Colesville Road.  The library didn't have a lot of information so the librarians sent me to the Montgomery County Historical Society in Rockville.  Well, they didn't have a lot of info on Silver Spring over there and I was shocked to see that.

As a new member of the community (during that time), I just wanted to get to know Silver Spring better and learn about the roots of the city. I'm naturally interested in reading about history and how things came about so that's another reason why I looked into finding out more about Silver Spring.

When I first did my research at the libraries I learned that Silver Spring is a "non-incorporated" city, meaning that there's no defined border to Silver Spring.  And I also learned there's something called the "up-county sector" and "down-county sector" of Montgomery County.

"Down-county" is towards the D.C line which is where Silver Spring falls into and while "up-county" has lots of history; the closer you got to DC and the urban area, there was barely any history on those areas.  To people there probably wasn't anything worth pursuing, which upset me--of course there's history!!

Patch: Due to your disappointment in finding so little on Silver Spring, what did you end up doing?

J.M.: I started to learn about Silver Spring on my own.  I saw that there were three cultural icons in Silver Spring, which were the following:

1)     An operating train station (Marc commuter station)

2)     A 24-hour diner which is Tastee's (the Tastee Diner)

3)     A post office mural from the 1930s, painted by workers put to work by the FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) presidential administration from the Great Depression that was in the original post office downtown.

The mural was what really got me started on starting up the Silver Spring Historical Society.

I had read about the Post Office Mural, and learned that Silver Spring was one of 17 cities in all of Maryland that had a mural that was 16 feet long and was in the post office.  The original post office downtown was turned into a record store and all the interior walls were torn out.  I just had to find out the answer on what happened to the mural, and it took me about one and a half years.  I found out that it had been scraped off the wall and put into a tube and placed in a basement somewhere.

I thought that was wrong because taxpayers had paid for this and I felt like I should be restoring it for the community to view.   The Montgomery County government informed me that it would cost 20 thousand dollars for the poster to be restored, and after speaking with history buffs like me and people with a keen interest in Silver Spring history, the Silver Spring Historical Society was founded in 1998, and over two years we were able to raise the money to get the poster restored.

  It's now a 16' 1/2" x 5 oil-on-canvas mural titled "The Old Tavern" by Nicolai Cikovsky, which hangs in the Silver Spring Library.  Its conservation was a project of the Friends of the Silver Spring Library.

Patch: What did you learn during this process?

J.M.: I saw that the people in Silver Spring felt like they had no history; that was the mentality of the people in this area. Yet for me, history is represented by regular people in Silver Spring trying to make this place better day by day.

Overall, I just felt that it was wrong that we have to dig deep for our history.  It may not be out there in the open, but our history should be more accessible for others to get hold of or to view in areas of the city from time to time.

Patch: Can you tell me more about the Silver Spring Historical Society?

J.M.: Certainly! The Silver Spring Historical Society (SSHS) is comprised 60 members and is a 501(c)3 organization, a non profit org.  A very nominal membership fee is required, $10.00 per year, which "gives the warm fuzzy feeling of saving the community."  

We don't have a newsletter or anything like that, but the books that we sell support the S.S.H.S.  And we also email each other about the latest news or alerts of what's happening in Silver Spring.

We also meet on the 1st Saturday of each month at the Silver Spring Station to give a free tour of the area.  I myself host a walking tour of Silver Spring, which is $10.00 for two hours which will take you all over the place in downtown Silver Spring.

Patch: How were the photos and items of old Silver Spring acquired, and what do you plan to do with them?

J.M.: Sometimes when I write articles about Silver Spring on my blog or on the S.S.H.S website, people will call me and offer to donate me their things.  I've also gone onto E-Bay, of all places, and after doing some research I'll come across old posters, papers and items from Silver Spring which I then buy off of the site.

Other times I do track people down in places like Florida, where the older Silver Spring residents may have moved to, and ask them about Silver Spring and if they have anything from their time here.  Many times people do want me to give them their things.

Right now, a lot of these things are in my basement at home.  The game plan is to buy a building in Silver Spring and set up the S.S.H.S headquarters where we can put all of these fabulous items from the past that show the history of Silver Spring.

Patch: So do you truly enjoy what you are doing even though it may be a lot of work from time to time?

I've been blessed to be doing this and I love hearing about people finding out about Silver Spring.  It's music to my ears when people ask me to help them with their searches about certain things in Silver Spring.

When people call the Chamber of Commerce for historical aspects of Silver Spring, the office refers these people to me. To me it's important, because before it seemed like no one was actively preserving Silver Spring.  I do believe that it's divine intervention for me to be preserving the history of Silver Spring, or else I think that most of the history would have been lost for good.

Jerry McCoy will sign copies of Then and Now, Downtown Silver Spring, on November 6th at Silver Spring's B&O Railroad Station, 8100 Georgia Avenue.  The book can be purchased for $21.99. Proceeds will help preserve the history of Silver Spring.

For more information on Silver Spring history, please check out the following links:

SSHS  (web site)

Silver Spring: Then & Again  (blog)

Historic Silver Spring  (book)

Downtown Silver Spring  (forthcoming book)

Silver Spring: Story of an American Suburb  (documentary film/McCoy is co-producer)

Silver Spring: Story of an American Suburb  (documentary film trailer)