Forgotten history of Ellicott City & Howard County MD

There are many model train sets scattered on tables/stands throughout the B&O Railroad Station in old Ellicott City (Main and Maryland...

The new B & O Railroad made the international news as seen in this excerpt from a French book. 

Charles Joseph Latrobe (1801-1875) an English traveler and future Governor of Australia described sites in Maryland - point of rocks, and ...

Theodore Dwight (1796-1866) wrote several books, including an early travel book by an American.   He describes the early days of the B...

During the early days of railroad building, various materials were used to make the rails, including wood, stone or iron.

The opening of service on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail road was covered in the local Niles’ Weekly Register   Baltimore: Mar – Sept 1830.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was started by businessmen in Baltimore, with the first line going to Ellicott mills.  As recalled by JHB La...

James Lea (1816-1857) was the son of Elizabeth (Ellicott) Lea (daughter of George Ellicott), and Thomas Lea, of the Lea Brandywine mills...

In 1830, the first horse drawn passenger car was used on the B & O rail road from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills.  To celebrate the ...

On Friday, Oct. 13, 1843 a reporter (“Old Honesty”) walked the six miles from Ellicott’s Mills to Elkridge Landing and wrote a long article...

The first passenger and freight railroad ran from Baltimore to Ellicott's mills (Ellicott City).  The tracks headed south out of Balti...

The Ellicott City B & O train station, on lower Main St., was opened in 1831.  The right (southern) portion of the station was a ...

"Ellicott's Mills , fourteen miles from Baltimore, covering the bottom and slopes of the steep hills with dwellings, and their top...

James Stuart (1775-1849) from Scotland, traveled in Maryland in 1829, and wrote about the canal, railway and the famed "Baltimore cli...

Thomas Hamilton (1789-1842) rode in "a wooden house or chamber...drawn by a horse at the rate of about four miles an hour."  Af...

During an 1831 trip to North and South America, Sir James Edward Alexander (1803-1885) took a detour from riding a “coach (a sort of windmi...

Wendel Bollman (1814-1884) from Baltimore started working for the B&O railroad and created a more stable bridge of iron for the trains...

Riding the new B&O railroad from Baltimore was a novel 'excursion', and was described in the 1833 book:  A Complete View of Bal...

By 1857 the B&O railroad had a kitchen and dining car combo but the restaurant in the Relay House (in picture) still offered a breakf...

Randolph B. Latimer (1821-1903) began working at age 15 in the B & O Railroad engineering department, then started a store Randolph ...