Question about DC/Bethesda zip code. (Columbia, Chevy Chase: neighborhood, DMV, zip codes)

[Babe_Ruth]

I'm curious if a long time resident of DC (and/or Bethesda) could help me with an answer..
I'm looking up a building with a mailing address from 1979. It was on St. Elmo Avenue. It looks like the building is gone, and its zip code looks obsolete too (which seems unusual). Does anyone remember the 20014 zip, and when it was changed or phased out?

If anyone can recollect, thanks.

[kyle19125]

There wasn't a 20014 I'm aware of. Is it possible it's 20814 which is active and covers St Elmo Avenue?

[Babe_Ruth]

Originally Posted by kyle19125

There wasn't a 20014 I'm aware of. Is it possible it's 20814 which is active and covers St Elmo Avenue?

I have a mailing address from 1979, that had St Elmo Avenue and it's zip at the time was 20014. But like you state, there's no 20014 now. The old (St Elmo) zip seems correct because it was printed throughout the magazine I found it in..
I know sometimes zip codes change due to population fluctuations.. but when I look online there's very little record of 20014's previous existence. It's become a pointless, but nagging curiosity for me to see if anyone remembers it, or the old building. It was the headquarters of the World Future Society, once upon a time

[kyle19125]

It's odd numerically given all of the 200 prefixes are District of Columbia addresses and certainly even in the 1950s-1970s there was plenty of people/businesses in Bethesda that it didn't need an umbrella DC zip code.

[macroy]

To my knowledge - 200 prefix has always been DC. So I don't see how something on St. Elmo Ave. would have that zip. could it have been a typo?

Grew up in Bethesda (albeit a few years after 1979), and just about all the addresses I remember had 208 prefixes in that area...

[BOS2IAD]

Back in the early 90s, all the zip codes in the DMV changed. At the time, our zipcode in Sterling, VA changed to 20164. We let friends and family know about the change. However, when my Dad went to his local out of state post office and wanted to mail a package to us, the postal clerk kept telling him that the zipcode was wrong. He told the clerk that we were the ones who gave him the new zipcode. Something similar happened when my SIL tried to mail a package to us.

I found this article from 1992 that explains the zipcode changes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-eab7f5d3cc6a/

Sterling Park used to be 22170 and later became 20164.

OP---It took a lot of digging to come up with this info using Google. I've tried finding out what the old zip was in Bethesda but came up empty. You may have better luck than I did.

[Babe_Ruth]

Originally Posted by BOS2IAD

Back in the early 90s, all the zip codes in the DMV changed. At the time, our zipcode in Sterling, VA changed to 20164. We let friends and family know about the change. However, when my Dad went to his local out of state post office and wanted to mail a package to us, the postal clerk kept telling him that the zipcode was wrong. He told the clerk that we were the ones who gave him the new zipcode. Something similar happened when my SIL tried to mail a package to us.

I found this article from 1992 that explains the zipcode changes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-eab7f5d3cc6a/

Sterling Park used to be 22170 and later became 20164.

OP---It took a lot of digging to come up with this info using Google. I've tried finding out what the old zip was in Bethesda but came up empty. You may have better luck than I did.

Thanks.. this is basically what I was looking for. Even tho it doesn't specifically mention Bethesda, it demonstrates an era when suburban DC was changing zips.
It's a strange thing because if you Google the World Future Society's address from the late 7os, a couple links come up.. and the St. Elmo (20014) address comes up continuously in their old hard copy magazines, so doubt it's a misprint. But it seems like 20014 vanished without a trace, even tho nearby zip numbers like 20015 exist.

It's become an annoying (& albeit pointless) question for me..

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by Babe_Ruth

Thanks.. this is basically what I was looking for. Even tho it doesn't specifically mention Bethesda, it demonstrates an era when suburban DC was changing zips.
It's a strange thing because if you Google the World Future Society's address from the late 7os, a couple links come up.. and the St. Elmo (20014) address comes up continuously in their old hard copy magazines, so doubt it's a misprint. But it seems like 20014 vanished without a trace, even tho nearby zip numbers like 20015 exist.

It's become an annoying (& albeit pointless) question for me..

20015 exists in Chevy Chase-DC, the portion of the neighborhood that has always been in Washington DC. It's apparent your 20014 was a long-standing typo of 20814 that went unnoticed and/or not feasible to change in the pre-digital era.

[ApprenticeWineSnob]

DC has more zips than NYC due to a lot of "unique" zips that are mostly for Federal Agencies and do not appear on any map.
Standard DC zips run mostly 20001 to 20045. Within that frame, a few are missing. The first is 20014.
Also missing are 21, 23, 25, 28, 31, and 34. The unique zips run to 20599.

https://www.zip-codes.com/city/dc-washington.asp

[kjg1963]

In Googling, I saw a few old addresses with this 20014 zip. One was for NIH. The below link has an ad that references 20014 also (first square).
https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/golf.../1973apr63.pdf