History Part 8
The Land Company donated land for the first public school. Opening its doors in 1898, it was a small, four-room building surrounded by an expanse of mud, with a plank for a front stairway. In 1901 the Land Company also gave land on Chevy Chase Circle for the first church in the Village, the All Saints Episcopal Church (organized in 1897), whose first rector, the Reverend Thomas S. Childs, owned a house in the Village. The Post Office building, now the Chevy Chase Village Hall at 5906 Connecticut Avenue, was a small, pebble-dashed structure that also accommodated the public library (an "artistically decorated room" with a collection of 1,000 books) and the fire apparatus (which included a fire engine, hose cart, and hook-and-ladder, as well as a fire bell located just south of the building).
The first residential section, Section II or Chevy Chase Village, located between Chevy Chase Circle and Bradley Lane, opened in 1893. The Land Company subsequently planned additional sections in both Maryland and the District of Columbia, which opened in the following order: Section III, east of Connecticut Avenue and north of Bradley Lane; Chevy Chase, D.C., located immediately southeast of the Circle; Section IV, west of Connecticut Avenue between the Chevy Chase and Columbia Country Clubs; Chevy Chase Heights, west of Connecticut Avenue about a half mile south of the Circle; and Section V, east of Connecticut Avenue above Section III. Curiously, there was originally no Section I, and although a portion of land added to Section II took this title on maps, it never gained widespread use.
The Chevy Chase Land Company was not solely responsible for developing the land. At times other developers were responsible for entire communities of homes. Otterborne Martin's Additions, and additional lands were folded into Chevy Chase's boundaries on all sides as time passed. More often, however, the Land Company sold lots singly to individuals, or in small groups for development. Evidently, in a few cases - perhaps to open a new section for development - they built houses themselves, but this was the exception.