Residents of Takoma Park like to think their community is Unique. In many ways, however, Takoma Park is a typical early American suburb. It was part of the late nineteenth-century movement away from the cities, made possible by new transportation methods. Large numbers of the middle class for the first time could escape the disadvantages of urban life and find peace, space, and a healthy environment for raising a family. Hundreds of real estate developments built near railroad lines after the Civil War have the same grid pattern of streets as Takoma Park (later varied in North Takoma by curving roads) and the same simple frame houses. Even the prohibition of alcohol, repeatedly mentioned with pride by early Takoma residents, was a common feature of these new communities.

Takoma Park's subsequent development followed the usual pattern of other railroad suburbs. First, large houses were built, widely spaced on ample lots; later, infill dwellings of smaller dimensions on lesser parcels of land appeared. Successive changes in transportation affected Takoma's physical plan and way of life - the steam railway was supplanted by electric streetcars, which were replaced by buses and automobiles, which most recently haave been supplemented by a rapid transit system. Once again the town is connected to the city by rails

The population, which in the early years was predominantly white and middle class, gradually became more varied as people of different income levels and ethnic origins settled here. Like many other towns, Takoma Park has made a series of transitions over the years, changing from a fashionable new place to live at the turn of the century, to a comfortable stability in the 1920s and 1930s, to a disquieting shabbiness after World War II. Recently, revitalization has occurred due in part to the new rapid transit system and to a vogue for Victorian and early twentieth-century homes. The Park is once again flourishing.

• Bruce Williams' list of past mayors and councilmembers.
• The Historic Takoma web site
• Faith Stern's History of the Takoma Park Junior High School..
• Alan Calmes' page on the Sligo Creek Waterworks.
• Douglas Willinger recounts the North Central Freeway fight.
• Sharon Burke's article on Touring the Dinky Trolley Line

The Takoma Voice has published several articles by Elizabeth Marple Bentley on Takoma Park History.

• The Wilderness that became Takoma
• Lamond's or Terra Cotta Station and Works
• The District's frontier in 1884
• Famous springs of Takoma Park
• Civil War history in Takoma Park's front and back yards
• Commerce in Takoma Park: A Century of change