Part 8 When Adam Bought the Farm 1922

Gaegler Farm

By the early 1920s, the Cokinos Brothers candy stores had generated enough revenue to allow Adam and Pete to buy their own homes and start thinking about other investments. A small article in the Washington Post in 1922 reported a total of six candy shops in total. That same year, Adam bought a 40 acre farm waaaay out in the country, about ten miles from DC on the corner of Montrose Road and the Rockville Pike. Developers now call it Pike and Rose, and you can take your dog over there for a happy hour.

Adam planned to set up some sort of farm-to-table enterprise for restaurants, but that vision never became a reality. Here's a bit of the property's history.

The Gaegler family first built a house here on 72 acres in 1865 using rammed earth and stone. Later the family ran a store called "Montrose" on the corner of the Rockville Pike and Old Georgetown Road. In 1914, Mary Gaegler sold the house and 53 acres to Dwight Scott who founded the National Vaccine and Antitoxin Institute. He made serums for farm animals. When Mr. Scott went bankrupt in 1920, the property was sold at auction. Leonard Nicholson bought it for $30,000 and flipped the property to Adam Cokinos in 1922 for about $40,000. (The internet rocks for information like this. I found a Park service document describing this historic property, but it has since disappeared from the web.)

Adam never did live on the farm. He hired a caretaker to look after the property. In 1924, he sold eight acres including the Gaegler house. Later that year, he sold the rest of the property.

The caretaker moved to an outbuilding. My father’s takeaway story was that the caretaker smoked in bed and burned down the farm which turned out to have a grain of truth. The real story is far more harrowing. I found this article in the “suburban” section of the Washington Post in 1925:

 “Jesse Cooley. 35 years old died in a Washington hospital yesterday as a result of burns sustained when a coal oil stove exploded in the kitchen of the home he and his father, John Cooley occupied on the farm of Adam Cokinos. Cooley was pumping oil into the stove when the explosion occurred. His clothing immediately ignited.” 

Poor Jesse. He ran to a nearby creek to save himself. A passing motorist picked him up, but he died at the hospital.

I think the explosion was the last straw for the farm idea. I know my uncle Nick used to have the original poster which announced the farm would be auctioned, but I can’t find a record of this online. For many years, the property was referred to as the "Cokinos tract." 

In 1926, Adam decided to pull up stakes. He sold his store at 12th and K to the Vilanos family. Adam, Katy and their girls Jean, Mary and Thetis left for his wife’s hometown of Philadelphia where he started a coffee company. Here is a photo of them from around that time.

Here is a little hep wanted ad from 1925

and here is a photo of the building on South Fifth Street.

The family stayed in Philadelphia for the rest of their lives. I remember my father George talking about them, and making trips up there to attend important family events. He always stayed in touch with our extended family- even after his Uncle Adam died in 1958.