TAKOMA PARK

city, Montgomery county, central Maryland, U.S., on Sligo Creek. It was founded in 1883 by real estate developer Benjamin F. Gilbert along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track as a northern residential development for Washington, D.C. The Seventh-day Adventists arrived in the 1900s and made Takoma Park their headquarters (later moved to neighbouring Silver Spring). They founded Washington Training Institute (now Columbia Union College), a sanitarium (now Washington Adventist Hospital), and other institutions. The Takoma Park campus of Montgomery College was opened in 1950. Inc. town, 1890; city, 1948. Pop. (1990) 16,724; (1996 est.) 17,792.