A historic marker was put up in Montgomery County, Maryland, to tell the story of a Black neighborhood that was shut down before it was ever built.

In 1906, four men bought dozens of acres of land off Wisconsin Avenue. It was going to be an upscale Black neighborhood called Belmont, rivaling Chevy Chase.

The planned Belmont neighborhood would have stretched from Wisconsin Avenue at the Friendship Heights Metro Station to Oliver Street.

But while the neighborhood was being built, the group was faced with threats against them.

“There were threats of violence, there was there people were talking about bringing out a clan,” said historian Neil Flanagan, who has spent seven years researching for the marker.

Three years into Belmont’s construction, all of the trustees and the Chevy Chase Land Company pulled out of the agreement, shutting down its development.

Felani Afrika Spivey, a descendant of one of the original four men nicknamed The Belmont Syndicate, helped unveil the marker Saturday at the intersection of Western Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue. 

“As a descendant, I’m just honored to be born into a family that did great work like this for American history,” said Spivey. “It dispels the myths about The Belmont Syndicate, and it just pays honor and homage to the four Black men who, in 1906 did such a courageous, almost unheard of thing.”

The WTOP studios are located where the Belmont neighborhood would have been.