Peyton Brown literally put Brown's Corner on the map in 1899 with his general store and smithy. Here he idles his sleek Buick roadster before the store in 1916. Observed the Annals: "If the inhabitants of this corner of the world are not provided with the necessaries of life it is surely not for lack of stores...a new one has been opened at the corner of Colesville pike and the Laurel road by B. Peyton Brown." Stanley Stabler recalled one of Brown's smiths, the father of Vernon 'Bun' Dantz: Small and bent, he still could shoe the largest horses. Tom Lansdale recalled that his father, Sheriff Richard, when transporting prisoners to Jessup prison would stop at Brown's Corner to allow them a last beer.

Robert and Hannah Stabler of Edgewood, left, were parents of the famed "Edgewood girls," four maiden sisters of widely admired charm, talent, and vivacity. Two other siblings were Florence, who married Charles E. Bond, and Albert, who in about 1900 doubled the size of the house shown above. Albert made the pages of Ripley's Believe It or Not! by virtue of using the same saw for 75 years. Four notable Stabler homes crowned Parr's Ridge: Sunnyside (demolished), Drayton, Oak Hill, and Edgewood, which today is a bed and breakfast.