Editing Gaithersburg, Maryland (section)

===19th century===
The Forest Oak Post Office, named for a large tree in the town, was located in Gaither's store in 1851.

On July 10, 1864, using the route of present-day 355, over 10,000 Confederate troops camped overnight in the area, including the present Bohrer Park, after a one-day march from [[Frederick, Maryland|Frederick]] after the [[Battle of Monocacy]]. The next day the troops continued towards Washington in an unsuccessful attempt to take the city.

When the railroad was built through town in 1873, the new station was called Gaithersburg, an officially recognized name for the community for the first time. Also in 1873 the [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad]] constructed a station at Gaithersburg,<ref name="fairs" /> designed by [[Ephraim Francis Baldwin]] as part of his well-known series of [[Victorian architecture|Victorian]] stations in Maryland.<ref>{{cite news |title=Gaithersburg Station |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=October 17, 1985 |page=MDA4 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/138469281 |location=Washington, D.C. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161018211556/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/doc/138469281.html |archive-date=Oct 18, 2016 }}{{closed access}}</ref> Rapid growth occurred shortly thereafter, and on April 5, 1878, the town was officially incorporated as the Town of Gaithersburg.

Gaithersburg boomed during the late 19th century and churches, schools, a mill, [[grain elevator]]s, stores, and hotels were built. Much of this development focused around the railroad station.<ref name="Offutt" />

In 1899, Gaithersburg was selected as one of six global locations for the construction of an [[International Latitude Observatory]] as part of a project to measure the Earth's wobble on its polar axis. The [[Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory]] is (as of 2007) the only [[National Historic Landmark]] in the City of Gaithersburg. The observatory and five others in [[Japan]], [[Italy]], [[Russia]], and the [[United States]] gathered information that is still used by scientists today, along with information from [[satellites]], to determine [[polar motion]]; the size, shape, and physical properties of the earth; and to aid the space program through the precise navigational patterns of orbiting satellites. The Gaithersburg station operated until 1982 when computerization rendered the manual observation obsolete.