Railroading around Cumberland

By Patrick H. Stakem

Located at the confluence of Will s Creek and the Potomac River, Cumberland, Maryland, is known as the Queen City of the Alleghenies. Because of the unique geography of the mountain passes, Cumberland became a transportation nexus between the Eastern Seaboard and the inland bounty of the United States. The National Road, a federal project initiated by Pres. Thomas Jefferson, passes through Cumberland, as does the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and Canal. Rail lines and roads stretch out west, south, and north to industrial, agricultural, and natural resource areas. Regional short-line railroads served to move coal to the loading docks of the canal in Cumberland. Today the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad features steam-power excursions from the old Western Maryland Station next to the canal basin, while 6,000-horsepower diesels haul heavy freight through the CSX Yards in South Cumberland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Apr 7, 2008
• ISBN: 9781439635520

Patrick H. Stakem

Author Patrick H. Stakem is a native of Cumberland with an interest in local history and transportation.

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INTRODUCTION

This book spans more than 159 years and is centered geographically on the city of Cumberland, Maryland, in Allegany County, in the western end of the state. Cumberland is called the Queen City of the Alleghenies. Many different railroads and many different forms of locomotion are discussed. Why Cumberland? Aside from it being my hometown, the answer is found by looking at a topological map or satellite image. In the early 19th century, when one traveled from the Eastern Seaboard to the Ohio River, there were not too many choices. The routes had already been surveyed, in part by a young Virginian in the employ of Lord Fairfax. His name was George Washington, and he would figure prominently in the history of the region. Heading west from Cumberland, one chose to either continue following the Potomac River Valley to the south or to use the natural gateway of the Narrows with the water level route of Will’s Creek. The National Road, built in 1807, pushed over the mountains, but the resultant grades limited the weight of the freight traffic. The options delineated by Washington and other early surveyors and explorers are as valid today as in the past.

Cumberland was predestined by geography to become a transportation nexus where various rail lines, the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal, and the National Road would come together. The Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad’s concept was to push westward quickly to tap the lucrative grain trade of the Ohio Valley. Cumberland was just an intermediate goal. The coalfields of the nearby Georges Creek region proved a powerful traffic source that continues to today. Local industries thrived, serving not only the transportation needs but providing export goods to world markets. These industries also shaped and defined the region’s railroads. Numerous significant railroad-related activities happened in the Cumberland area. The first iron rail manufactured in the country was rolled at Mount Savage, a few miles from Cumberland. Also at Mount Savage, the shops of the Cumberland and Pennsylvania (C&P) Railroad turned out their unique steam engines for their own use and for sales to other lines.

A SHORT CUMBERLAND HISTORY

Cumberland, Maryland, the seat of Allegany County, is not unlike hundreds of similarly sized cities across that country. The transportation history of the region tracks the transportation history of the nation in microcosm.

The earliest European explorers visited the confluence of Will’s Creek and the Potomac River around 1728. Native American villages had occupied the site for some time. The map from Lord Fairfax’s expedition of 1736 shows the area with an abandoned village. Thomas Cresap established a settlement east of this area in 1740, and the Ohio Company built a storehouse there around 1750.

The British army, along with the Maryland and Virginia militias, built Fort Cumberland sometime before 1755. Gen. Edward Braddock’s expedition reached there in May of that year. The fort was situated in hostile territory during the French and Indian War. Abandoned in 1765, it was in ruins when General Washington visited again in 1794.

In 1783, Thomas Beall of neighboring Washington County laid out a town on the west side of Will’s Creek. By 1786, a village was in place. A charter was granted by the legislature in 1787, and the city of Cumberland was incorporated in 1818.

The National Road, a project of Pres. Thomas Jefferson, connected Cumberland to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1818 and extended eastward to Baltimore. In the 1820s, coal was shipped from Cumberland to Georgetown down the Potomac on flat-bottom boats.

In 1828, a historic year for transportation in America, both the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal began building westward from the seaboard to the Ohio River. The geography dictated an intermediate goal of Cumberland, Maryland. The B&O Railroad (chapter two) arrived in Cumberland in 1842, while the C&O Canal (chapter three) came to town in 1850.

The telegraph reached the city in 1854. During the Civil War, a bored Union general, Lew Wallace, penned the epic novel Ben Hur while serving in the garrison at Cumberland. The mayor did surrender the city briefly to Confederate troops in 1863, when the Union troops were redeployed to New Creek (Keyser). A military hospital was located nearby in Clarysville. In a dramatic but inconsequential action, McNeill’s Raiders kidnapped Union generals Kelley and Crook from their hotel in Cumberland near the end of the war. The battle of Folck’s Mill in August 1864 saw townspeople and Union soldiers turn back the Confederate forces that had burned Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. This led to the armored train engagement in Oldtown, Maryland, discussed in chapter four.

The B&O built the Queen City Hotel in 1872. The railroad and the shops, including the rolling mill, were major employers. During the period from 1890 to 1930, the population of the city tripled as railroads and local industry continued to provide a steady, dependable employment base and immigrants flocked to the region. The main manufacturing employers in the Cumberland area, besides the railroads, included the Kelly-Springfield Tire Company, set up in 1917; the Celanese Corporation; Footer’s Dye Works; several breweries and bakeries; the Pittsburgh Plate Glass plant; the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory; and the nearby Westvaco (now New Page Corporation) paper mill.

In the early 19th century, western Maryland boasted vast natural resources of agricultural materials, coal, iron, fireclay, and wood. However, there was no practical way to get these materials