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Wheaton is home to the Wheaton Regional Park, which includes a nature center; riding stables; dog park; a picnic area with carousel and miniature train; an athletic complex with tennis bubble, ice rink, in-line skating rink, and ball fields; and Brookside Gardens, Montgomery County's award-winning 50-acre (200,000-m²) public display garden. Much of Wheaton was developed in the 1950s. In the 1960s its shopping center, Wheaton Plaza (now known as Westfield Wheaton), was the largest in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. Wheaton is also home to the Wheaton Regional Public Library. The Wheaton Volunteer Rescue Squad is located in the Central Business District and is one of the busiest (11,000 calls in 2007) predominantly volunteer fire departments in Montgomery County. The diversity of the neighborhood is reflected by the high concentration of various ethnic restaurants located in Wheaton, as well as in the composition of the student body of Wheaton High School (school website), part of the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS website) and located near the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Randolph Road.
It is served by the Red Line of the Washington Metro system. Spanning 508 feet (155m), the Wheaton Metro station has the longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere.[5][6]
Since Wheaton has the highest location in the Washington, DC area, it was also the home of the first television license in the United States. Using the call sign W3XK, Charles Francis Jenkins began broadcasting from his home at the corner of Windham Lane and Georgia Ave.[4][7] starting on July 2, 1928[8]. |