When the B&O Railroad transversed Montgomery County in 1873 it brought the area into the Industrial Age and transformed Germantown from a sleepy crossroads village into a thriving railroad town, moving the commercial center of the town one mile to the east to be next to the railroad. By the 1920s the town had the 2nd largest grain mill in Maryland, two general stores, a bank, a post office, two boarding houses, a doctor, a wheelwright shop and many smaller businesses.; transportation-based town