If you were to ask any Germantowner with a basic sense of our community history who the most important person to reside in Germantown was, they would probably tell you Walter Johnson. the “Big Train,” as Johnson was known, wasn’t born here and didn’t even live here until he retired from his legendary baseball career, but that has never stopped us from claiming him as one of our own.

Johnson was a pitcher for the Washington Senators professional baseball team from 1907 to 1927. Born in Kansas in 1887, he was ‘discovered’ by a traveling cigar salesman (who wrote to the Senators) while playing in a semi-professional league in Idaho. He went on to play a lengthy 21 years with the team, winning more than 400 games and pitching over 3000 strikeouts. He even led the team to victory in the 1924 World Series. He was also one of the first five members of the baseball hall of fame.

After retiring from pitching, he became a manager for a variety of teams before retiring to a dairy farm in Germantown in 1935. His farm covered much of what is now Gunners Lake Village and his house was just across Crystal Rock drive from where Seneca Valley HS now stands. Here, he raised his 5 children with the help of his mother (his wife had died in 1930 of heat exhaustion).

In 1938, he ran to be a Montgomery County Commissioner (the government that proceeded the County Council) where he served until he ran for Congress in 1940. He was a lifelong Republican, local celebrity, and friend of former President Coolidge when future Speaker of the House Joseph Martin Jr. (R-MA) recruited him to run for Maryland’s 6th District. Despite his fame and reputation for kindness, Johnson proved to be a weak campaigner, as Rep. Martin later recounted. He lost the race to the incumbent Democrat by 6%, but was later reelected to the County Commission. He was running for a third term in 1946 when he was hospitalized for an inoperable brain tumor.

Walter Johnson died that year and was interred in Rockville. He was a beloved member of the community at the time of his death and remained a local legend for decades. The 1989 Germantown Master Plan even indicated a desire to erect a statue of him in town center. Although this never came to fruition, there is a High School named in his honor in Bethesda, MD.