Renamed Washington Railway and Electric Company in 1902, it controlled lines from Anacostia in Southeast D.C. past the White House and out to various Maryland cities and towns, including Rockville and Cabin John to the northwest and Hyattsville and Laurel to the northeast.

By 1890, efforts were underway to win a congressional charter to build a streetcar line from the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., to Cabin John Creek in Maryland's Montgomery County.

[2] On June 14, 1892, the House of Representatives authorized the charter in a series of votes that also forbade the use of horsecars in the District of Columbia after year's end.

[4] Among its reported provisions: the railroad's right-of-way would not be taxed as real estate, but the company was required to light the streets it ran along and to pay four percent of gross revenue.

[5] The route would run from a passenger station to be constructed in the block bounded by 35th and 36th Streets and M and Prospect Streets NW, just north of the Aqueduct Bridge in Georgetown, "running thence west over the [Chesapeake and Ohio] Canal road on an elevated railway of iron columns and beams",[6] along the southern side of the Georgetown Reservoir, through the just-conceived neighborhood of The Palisades, and past Chain Bridge.

[7] The northern terminus was chosen for the "weekend and summer resort for wealthy and well-known Washingtonians" that had grown up around the Washington Aqueduct's Union Arch Bridge since the 1870s.

[8][9] Construction began on a single-track line in 1893,[10] including the erection of a 280-foot steel Pratt truss bridge to cross the Foundry Branch stream in Georgetown.

[7] Operations began shortly thereafter, with speeds limited to five miles per hour while running on roads and crossings, and fares capped at 10 cents a ride.

[7] "When the line was finished, it was recognized for the scenic views along its route which traveled through neighborhoods and wooded areas interspersed with vistas over the Potomac River.

It was also the only streetcar line in the District known to have followed a private right of way for an extensive portion of its route rather than an already established street or road," a 2019 history would report.

Rolling stock was housed in the Falls Car Barn, a one-story, six-track wood-frame building completed in 1896 (demolished in 1946) at the line's Georgetown terminus at 38th and Prospect Streets NW.

On November 1, 1895, a new streetcar company—somewhat confusingly named the West Washington and Great Falls Electric Railway Company—was founded to connect Glen Echo to the new development of Chevy Chase, Maryland.

The City and Suburban Railway[25] and the Georgetown and Tennallytown Railroad operated as subsidiaries until October 31, 1926, when the WREC purchased the remainder of their stock.

[23] But the 1902 transaction turned the WREC into the region's largest transit company, with some 60 miles of track stretching from V Street SE in Anacostia, up Pennsylvania Avenue and throughout downtown D.C.; out to Bethesda, Rockville, and Silver Spring in Maryland; and to Glen Echo and Great Falls along the Potomac.

"The coal was delivered to the new barn in small single truck hoppers via the streetcar line, which was a tremendous feat given the steep grade from the river through Georgetown to Calvert Street," a 2006 history would report.

But in 1910, WREC and its subsidiary lines, the Georgetown and Tennallytown and Washington and Rockville, began requiring an additional five-cent ticket for rides that crossed the District-Maryland boundary.

Citizens of the D.C. neighborhood of Friendship Heights and of the Montgomery County municipalities of Drummond and Somerset complained to the Interstate Commerce Commission, arguing that the hike was unjust and unreasonable under ICC rules.

"However, for at least a while, a through service was operated to downtown Washington, with cars from Great Falls running all the way to 8th Street," the National Capital Trolley Museum wrote in 2012.

[39] North American Company was broken up by the Securities and Exchange Commission, following the United States Supreme Court decision of April 1, 1946.