Allegany County Maryland

Allegany County administrative offices are located at 701 Kelly Road, Cumberland MD 21502; phone 301-777-2526.

Beginnings [1]

Allegany county derives its name from an Indian word Alligewi, a tribe name, or Oolikhanna, meaning fairest stream. Its area is 442 square miles, and it lies between Garrett and Washington, with the Potomac river separating it from West Virginia on the south. Its northern line is the Pennsylvania boundary. In this county is found the narrowest part of the state, and it is conspicuous by reason of the fact that coal- mining and manufactures give occupation and support to the great majority of its people, whose number places Allegany next to Baltimore county in population. The coal fields cover 64,000 acres in what is known as the George's Creek (named after Washington) Coal Basin, west of Cumberland, between Dan's mountain and Savage mountain. The county is rich in other mineral deposits, also -fire-clay, cement, iron ore, Medina sandstone, etc. The George's Creek Coal Basin is a part of that greatest of all coal deposits, the Allegheny field, which extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama. In Maryland the deposit is of a semi-bituminous variety, highly prized for its peculiar qualities and unrivaled steam-making power. The limestone and clay lands and the Potomac "bottoms," in parts of Allegany, are exceedingly fertile, and produce potatoes, wheat,corn, buckwheat, oats, and grass in large crops. Fruits, especially apples, flourish on the mountain sides. The county is very progressive, and the standard of education, particularly among the miners, is high. Vast sums of capital are invested in Allegany industries, and some of these are among the most extensive of their kind in the United States. Tin-plate, leather, cement, lumber, machinery, flour, glass, and many other products of the county are shipped far and near. Next to Baltimore, Cumberland, with a population of 17,128, is the largest city in the state, and is constantly growing in material resources and size. It is the business center of a territory which extends into Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It is 178 miles from Baltimore and 149 from Pittsburgh, and is reached by the Baltimore and Ohio, West Virginia Central (of which it is the eastern terminus), and Cumberland and Pennsylvania railroads, the latter a part of the Pennsylvania system. The Chesapeake and Ohio canal extends from Cumberland to Georgetown, D.C. Fort Cumberland, where Braddock camped, was the starting- point of the present city. Incident and legend, dealing with Indian, British, French, and Civil wars, cluster about Cumber- land, and the topography and nomenclature of this region are suggestive. Frostburg, 17 miles westward of Cumberland, is a city of 5,247 population, on a plateau at an elevation of 1,700 feet above sea-level. The second State Normal School is at Frostburg. Lonaconing, a mining town of 2,180 population, is in southwestern Allegany; Westernport, Midland, Barton, Mt. Savage, Ocean, Flintstone, Orleans, Pekin, are other towns.

1. Gambrill, J. Montgomery, Leading Events of Maryland History, 1904, Athenaeum Press, Ginn & Company, Boston