Art on Main Street - OEC - Old Ellicott City

A variety of art including two large murals on the buildings next to the visitors center (part of the Yates mural, left), inside the old Post Office are two New Deal Murals, sculptures of an eggplant and peach on upper Main, mill wheel and water sculpture on side of a building, tile entryways to some of the stores, faux painting of bricks and rocks for the Times building, faux painting on plywood window covers after flooding, Christmas art on store windows...

Click to enlarge each photo, HABS is Historic American Buildings writeup.

Four Firehouses of Ellicott City

The first three firehouses were on upper Main Street, and the current firehouse is above Old Ellicott City at the top of Old Columbia Pike at 4150 Montgomery Road.

Thanks to everyone - present and past - who stepped forward to be firemen and protect us all.

Main Street OEC Old Ellicott City - South side

A 'walk' by historic & flood prevention sites along Main Street, Old Ellicott City OEC. For more information click on the HABS - Historic American Buildings writeup.

Main Street buildings - Old Ellicott City - North side

Historic & flood prevention sites along Main Street (Frederick St.), in Ellicott City. 1860 Schase map (left) and 1834 McLoughlin lottery sketch depict the buildings on Main Street.

Caplan's store redone and open for business

Although the back portion which went over the river was removed, a small portion has been fixed up by the county and open. Stop by while you are in old EC shopping or just walking around.

Merry Christmas

The mill wheel art on the side of the old movie theater on Old Columbia Pike and Main St. (Frederick Road) has a green wreath with white lights over the water wheel.

Dr. Who's Tardis is a "Little Free Library" to open this Sunday on Dr. Who Day - Nov 23

The long-running British TV show Dr. Who has a Tardis... now Old Ellicott City has one to house books in a large "Little Free Library" (take a book, leave a book). One can be transported through time and space in the Tardis (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), and the interior is larger than the exterior. "Books: They're Bigger on the inside..." clever sign in this Tardis.

NOTE: Removed the last week of March.

The big blue box mysteriously appeared in Tiber Park (by the B&O RR Station) in early October. And now we know it's a Tardis... and will open this Sunday.

So check out this fun Tardis ... and leave some books if you have extras to build the selection. While you are there take the kids to the nearby free large model train displays for the holidays (details below).

Caplan's Department Store

8125 Main St., Ellicott City was bought by the Caplans 1913, 1926. Howard County, which owns the building, is working on it ($500,000 budget). Photographed this morning. Notice the close rear wall, compare with photo below. Back and side walls seem there, this rear wall added to give more support to the front wall/ facade? I shall rewrite, add more info and pictures.

This building was later than my prefered time period, so I did not take photos before the floods. It is next to the short building that Ellizabeth Ellicott Lea who wrote the first Maryland cookbook in 1845, collected rent from, so I have that corner. Blog post HERE

Updates: Mar 17... Nv 2025...

Main Street buildings coming down - Easton Funeral Home/Bean Hollow (Coffee) to Valmos Bros/Phoenix Emporium

The demolition will be documented here, so pictures will be added throughout the process. These are the last three buildings protecting the 1830 RR Station (the oldest in America) by blocking the flood waters down Main Street. Click on photos to enlarge.

Updated: Feb 7, 15, 24; March 3, 8, 15, 29, 30, 2024; Mar 24, 2025

Main Street buildings coming down - Great Panes

The first Main Street building to be torn down is the old Great Panes, which did stained glass. Stone front building, c1841, additions and stucco c1870, c1920. Demolished by Feb 24

Saw this today, so doing a very quick post. Although I am very concerned for the train station when all four buildings are torn down and thus not able to curve the next flood waters on Main St. away from the B&O Station - the oldest train station in America; at least not as many buildings are being torn down as planned by the previous County Executive.

Mark Russo Creations creating art on Main Street 2023

For a few months this fall, artist Mark Russo painted some bright vibrant paintings on the boards of Great Panes and Phoenix Emporium on lower Main Street, Ellicott City. He cleverly made the two art pieces look like stained glass, on the building (Great Panes) which used to make and sell stained glass. Likewise the painting for the Phoenix Emporium includes an imaginative version of the brick wall breaking apart, and the phoenix (bird) rising. Unfortunately those buildings and two others will be demolished this January. So go down and see these creative paintings quickly!

ALERT the wall mural was torn down early.

Deborah Disney's Hotel and 'tavern' 1830s to 1860

Deborah McLaughlin Disney (c1798-  ) was a remarkable businesswoman who leased the hotel(not tavern), then bought it in 1840. An acre was sold for a new courthouse and jail; the deed even stated where Court Street would run, and they had to build a "substantial fence."  She increased the hotel size by 1844. "Mrs. Disney's Hotel" or the Union Hotel was a "commodious and well-established hotel," with a 4 story brick addition on the west side, a stable for 70 horses, running water at the stable yard with room for a flower garden, 8 acres to grow vegetables and hay, and outbuildings.  She sold it in 1860.

Andrew McLaughlin and the Patapsco Hotel

Andrew McLaughlin (1802-1863) is remembered in Howard County for the sketch showing lower Main St. for a lottery to sell his property.  He worked at the Indian Queen hotel in Baltimore for his uncle John Gadsby (known from Gadsby's Tavern Museum, Alexandria, VA). Gadsby's second wife, Margaret McLaughlin, was born in Ellicott's Mills.  McLaughlin married David Barnum's daughter and became the proprietor of the famous Barnum's City Hotel in Baltimore (left; click images to enlarge).

Grist mill became an electric power plant on the Tiber

Just off lower Main Street on Tiber Alley, a grist mill was built sometime before an 1860 map labeled it "T McCrea Depot Mill." The 1894 Sanborn map labeled it "Ellicott City Electric Light & Power Co." (black on pink rectangle behind Kraft Meat) with the "Engines & Dynamos".  The electric company was started in 1892 but was in financial troubles by 1894 and in 1898 EC went with a Catonsville company.   Click images to enlarge.

Electric trolley to Ellicott City for Christmas shopping

"Line will be in operation in time for Christmas Shopping" was the headline for an 1898 article in the Baltimore Sun.  Initially started in 1895 by the Edmondson Avenue, Catonsville Ellicott City Electric Railway, they stopped constructing the road which involved cutting through a 50-foot hill and diverting a stream. The new company had problems building the eastern bridge abutment and had to get permission to shut down the mill race for the Gambrills mill while they built the abutment.

Thanksgiving Day county fair... IN... the Patapsco Hotel

The Howard County fair began on Thanksgiving Day, 1907, and probably took place in the old Patapsco Hotel, by the train tracks and across the bridge from the railroad station.  The hotel was originally a passenger station for the new Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. A past post HERE.  Ponies, poultry, pumpkins, 'Pekin ducks,' turkeys and more filled all the four floors.

Trying to tame the floods - Stormwater Staircase; Tiber branch, Hudson branch, New Cut

The Hudson and Tiber 'branches' (more like streams in dry weather) join in parking lot D behind the visitor's center (old post office).  The Tiber branch enters from the pipe on the left, and the Hudson branch flows under Main St. then under the building in the upper right. They become the Tiber branch as it proceeds east, joined by New Cut stream, then flows into the Patapsco River.

Wealthy Kraft family's butcher shop on Main Street OEC

8081 Main St., a fine stone building, was built c1833 as a home then became a store.  In 1881 Dorothy Kraft bought the building for Kraft's Meat Market. The Kraft meat sign is seen on the first building.



Andrew Kraft (1836-1881) and Dorothy (1839-1916) were both from Germany - he arrived at age 15, she at age 6 and started working at the mills.  He worked for a butcher, then started out on his own. They married in 1858 and had a large family which continued the business after she died in 1916 as "one of the richest women" in the county leaving "$300,000 worth of property" to her family.

Ellicott City flood.... again

Less than two years after the last devastating flood of 2016, Main Street was flooded again on Sunday May 27, 2018.  Within a few mile swath 9.5 inches of rain pummeled us over a short time in the afternoon, however less than 15 miles south there was no rain.

An old stone building - the first county courthouse - turned into orientation center behind the log cabin museum, is now gone; as is the road on left side of the photo.

Tom Randall and the Howard House

Tom Randall was the son of Julia Bacon, a slave who was the cook at Howard House.  The Howard House hotel, built in 1850 contained a bar and dining room in addition to the bedrooms.  Randall told his story in the WPA's Slave Narrative Project in 1936.