I found a brief mention of the Frito-Lay plant in Bethesda today while searching for some info on lineside industries. This was featured in a Q&A section on Bethesda Magazine’s website:
A neighbor who grew up here told me there was a Frito plant on Elm Street and Arlington Road in the 1940s. What was its exact location?
—Susan Rubel, Bethesda
The Frito Capital Company was at 4860 Bethesda Ave.—the current location of the Apple Store—according to a 1949 telephone directory in the Montgomery County Historical Society library.
Frito-Lay spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez says the plant was purchased by H.W. Lay & Company in the 1950s, and that it made Fritos corn chips until a new plant in Brentwood, Md., replaced it in about 1963.
William M. Offutt, author of Bethesda: A Social History (1995), recalls the plant being served by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He says the scent of Fritos chips baking “added a very distinct smell to the neighborhood.”
