Sam Eig

Sam Eig (c. 1899 – 1982) was a Russian-American real estate developer active in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.^[1][2]

Biography[]

Eig was born in Smilovichi, Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Belarus) to a Jewish family.^[2] In 1914, he immigrated to the United States^[1] arriving first in Seattle, Washington then New York City, New York and then in Washington, D.C.^[1] He worked various jobs as a bellboy, busboy, construction worker, and butcher’s assistant.^[1] After a failed investment in a grocery store, he opened a liquor store in the 1930s which was successful, enabling him to buy a distillery. Using the earnings from this business, he started to invest in real estate in then undeveloped Silver Spring, Maryland. In 1944, he purchased the Silver Spring Shopping Center; and in 1946, he built the Eig Building.^[1] Eig was a proponent of further development in Silver Spring and was an active member of the Silver Spring Board of Trade.^[1] In the late 1930s, he personally developed 30 housing lots in Rock Creek Forest, after being denied financing from local banks.^[1] Aware that people preferred to move to places that were more established, Eig donated land for the construction of community centers and churches^[1] including a Red Cross building and Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring.^[3] Eig was successful and by the late 1940s, his real estate holdings were valued at over $100 million (worth over $1 billion in 2019).^[1] He later expanded into hotels building the Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland in 1957 and the Georgian Motel in Silver Spring in 1961.^[1] Until the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Eig used racially restrictive covenants to exclude African Americans and other racial minorities.^[4] Eig referred to the whites-only Rock Creek Forest neighborhood as "ideally located and sensibly restricted."^[5]

Sam Eig Highway, a continuation of Interstate 370, was named in his honor.^[2] Eig died in 1982 at the age of 83.

References[]