Liberty Mill was a major part of the farming community of Germantown for many years. The original steam-powered mill began operation in 1888, founded by the Bowman brothers, Charles, Eldridge, and Upton, sons of Francis Asbury Bowman of Cedar Grove. Lumber for the mill was sawed at Black Rock Mill, and the Bowman Brothers milled wheat and corn for local sale and for shipment by railroad to Washington, D.C. markets. In its heyday, the mill produced 24,000 pounds of flour each day, 9,000 pounds of cornmeal each week, and animal feed as a byproduct. After fire destroyed the original wooden structure about 1914, the Bowmans rebuilt it and later sold it to the Liberty Milling Company, incorporated on November 30, 1918, by Stanley P.F. Kline, William C. Greeting, Herbert King, and Augustus R. Selby, who purchased it on December 7, 1918, for $25,000. Selby became the mill's resident agent and later a prominent Germantown figure, elected in 1948 to the first Montgomery County Council when the county adopted the charter form of government. Under the new owners, the mill was modernized with a grain elevator in 1919, a grain drier in 1920, and concrete tanks in 1930, while its power source changed from steam to diesel, which also supplied electricity to neighboring houses. During World War II, a contract with the armed forces opened a new market and brought prosperity. In the 1950s, it was the second largest mill in Maryland, with $1 million in annual sales, six grain silos holding 6,300 bushels, three additional storage spaces of 3,000 bushels each, a nearby warehouse for 40,000 bushels of bagged wheat, a 125-horsepower generator, and a store selling flour, mixes, and animal feed to local residents. After Augustus R. Selby's death in February 1963, his son-in-law Samuel P. “Pete” Hersperger took over management. The mill was sold in 1967 to P. V. Gross, who operated it briefly before going bankrupt in the late 1960s. It then stood vacant until it burned to the ground in June 1972.