Hotel Hospitality - Washington D.C. Downtown Bethesda Marriott

The Marriott Bethesda Downtown is the 8,000th and newest addition to the Marriott collection of properties. The location was as carefully selected as the hotel’s design and décor and was chosen for its accessibility to all that Washington, D.C. has to offer as well as more suburban sites and events and yet, is cleverly situated in an area conducive to a restful and restorative destination experience.

The earliest documented European to explore Bethesda was a fur trader named Henry Fleet. He entered the area via the Potomac River and he encountered the local Piscataway natives. In 1622, he was either captured or voluntarily lived among the Anacostan Indians for several years.

The area took its name from the Bethesda Meeting House constructed in 1820. The original meetinghouse burned to the ground and was rebuilt in 1850. The name, Bethesda, is derived from Hebrew and later translated to Greek and means “House of Mercy”. Biblically it was the site of the healing Pool of Bethesda, a place where the infirm went for a miracle cure. More than 2,000 years later it continues the tradition of its namesake as the site of the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the National Institute of Health. https://www.greaterbethesdachamber

Transportation was the key to the early development of Bethesda. Tobacco was the first primary crop in the state and rural tobacco farmers populated the region until transportation into the area became readily available in the 1880s. Alta Vista, considered the

By Renée Gordon