Samuel Eig (December 17, 1898 – December 25, 1982) was an American real estate developer active in the

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

.Montgomery County Historical Society: "Immigration and Success - Samuel Eig"
retrieved October 18, 2014Jewish Washington: "Real Estate Boom"
retrieved September 18. 2014

Biography

Eig was born in Smilovichi,

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(present-day

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) to a

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family. In 1914, he immigrated to the United States arriving in

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, then moving to

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, and then Washington, D.C. He worked various jobs as a bellboy, busboy, construction worker, and butcher's assistant. After a failed investment in a grocery store, he opened a liquor store in the 1930s whose profits enabled him to buy a distillery. Using the earnings from this business, he started to invest in real estate in then-undeveloped

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially Unincorporated area, unincorporated, it is an edge city with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ...

. In 1944, he purchased the Silver Spring Shopping Center; and in 1946, he built the Eig Building. Eig was a proponent of further development in Silver Spring and was an active member of the Silver Spring Board of Trade. In the late 1930s, he personally developed 30 housing lots in Rock Creek Forest, after being denied financing from local banks. Aware that people preferred to move to places that were more established, Eig donated land to build community centers and churches including a

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building and Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. Eig was successful and by the late 1940s, his real estate holdings were valued at over $100 million (worth over $1 billion in 2019). He later expanded into hotels, building the Washingtonian Center in

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in 1957 and the Georgian Motel in Silver Spring in 1961. Because of

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in Washington, D.C., Eig was denied access to developing homes in some of DC's most desirable neighborhoods. Until the passage of the

1968 Fair Housing Act The Civil Rights Act of 1968 () is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots. Titles II through VII comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applie ...

, Eig and his wife Esther used

racially restrictive covenants A covenant, in its most general and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a seal. Be ...

to exclude

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and other racial minorities from suburbs they helped develop. Eig referred to the whites-only Rock Creek Forest neighborhood as "ideally located and sensibly restricted." A typical racially restrictive deed in Rock Creek Forest from 1941 states that "No person of any race other than the Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot, except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant." Sam Eig Highway, a continuation of

Interstate 370 Interstate 370 (I-370) is a Interstate Highway spur route off I-270 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to the western end of the Maryland Route 200 (MD 200, Intercounty Connector) toll road at an interchange that provides access to the pa ...

, was named in his honor. He was a life member of B'nai Israel Congregation of Rockville. Eig died in 1982 at the age of 83.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eig, Sam 1892 births 1982 deaths American Ashkenazi Jews American businesspeople in real estate American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American segregationists Belarusian Jews Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Jews and Judaism in Montgomery County, Maryland People from Chervyen district People from Igumensky Uyezd Real estate and property developers from Maryland Real estate and property developers from Washington, D.C.