Francis G. Newlands

In the late 1880s, Newlands and his partners began to acquire farmland in northwestern Washington, D.C., and southern Montgomery County, Maryland, in order to develop a residential streetcar suburb for the nation's capital. On June 23, 1888, Newlands chartered the Rock Creek Railway for a single-track streetcar.[14] Two years later, Newlands and his partners purchased more than 1,700 acres and formed the Chevy Chase Land Company.[15][16] Between 1890 and 1892, the Land Company built two bridges, constructed five miles of road, and laid streetcar tracks along the road.[15] The Rock Creek Railway opened in 1892.[16] To supply the electricity to the streetcars, the company dammed Coquelin Run, a small tributary of Rock Creek, just east of Connecticut Avenue; the resulting Chevy Chase Lake supplied water for an electric generating plant. From 1894 to 1936, the Land Company operated an amusement park on the lake as a means to draw prospective buyers to the development and to keep the streetcars supplied with evening and weekend passengers.[17]

Newlands created the Chevy Chase Springs Hotel (later the Chevy Chase School for Girls, now the 4-H Youth Conference Center). Newlands ensured the community included schools, churches, country clubs, tree-lined streets, a water supply and a sewage system. Groceries and daily purchases were brought from Washington, D.C., on the railway at no charge to residents.[16]

In 1893, Newlands began to subdivide some property he inherited in Burlingame, California. He started with the Burlingame Country Club and five cottages. The following year, he added the Burlingame train station.[18][19]

Newlands represented Nevada in the United States House of Representatives from 1893 to 1903 as a member of the Silver Party. In 1898, he created the Newlands Resolution, which annexed the Republic of Hawaii, creating a new territory.[9] He supported a greater federal role in conservation and pushed for federal funding of western arid land irrigation projects.[9][20] He helped pass the Reclamation Act of 1902, also called the Newlands Act, which created what would become the Bureau of Reclamation.[9]

Newlands as a US Senator, c. 1914

Newlands entered the United States Senate in 1903 as a Democrat. He supported the protection of the National Forests under the United States Forest Service in 1905, and the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.[9] He was a member of the Senate subcommittee that investigated the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic.[21] In 1916, he was the only Democratic senator to vote against the nomination of Louis Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court.[22]

Newlands held white supremacist beliefs and spoke publicly in favor of restricting the rights of African-Americans.[6][23][24]

He served until his death in Washington, D.C., on December 24, 1917. He died of heart failure in his home.[25]