Every Springfield must have its Shelbyville.
Just as the fictional hometown of “The Simpsons” has its cross-town rival of Shelbyville, so too does Hyattsville have its Bladensburg. Except maybe Bladensburg is the ill-begotten Springfield in this scenario.
From the Washington Post, May 24, 1980 (not available online):
The town was founded in 1845 by one Christopher Clarke Hyatt on a parcel of land between the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks and the Washington-Baltimore Turnpike. Hyatt, it seems, wanted to get away from rowdy Bladensburg. His most conspicuous legacy is a continued ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages.
Another legacy is a number of handsome Victorian houses along shady roads, and a few handsome commercial buildings, left from the days when Hyattsville was one of Washington’s most pleasant streetcar suburbs. In addition to the trolley, the B&O ran about 30 trains a day.
Bladensburg has always had a bit of a rowdy (if not downright unsavory) reputation dating back to the days of the Dueling Grounds and continuing on through the times when the Bladensburg Road “strip” was home to some very wild and raucous bars and nightclubs,
But perhaps it’s Riverdale that deserves the honor of being Hyattsville’s rival, considering our “border wars” and the legenday 1927 feud between the Riverdale and Hyattsville police chiefs .
http://rpwiki.wetpaint.com/page/History