When I was preparing for the Maryland episode of Sea to Shining Sea, I was struck by how the American Discovery Trail’s route through the state tells the history of transportation through the region. I’m in the thick of that now, as I move closer towards DC. In fact, I missed one!
Leaving Annapolis and its ample harbors behind, I quickly found myself following a bike route, the East Coast Greenway. Turns out, the ECG covers some 3000 miles along the East Coast, linking Maine with Key West, Florida. They have a lot of work to do to get the full greenway away from auto traffic–including the stretches that I followed today–but it’s a neat concept that seems otherwise well established at this point.
As I transitioned into Bowie, I found myself joining a rail trail, the Washington, Baltimore, & Annapolis (WB&A) Trail. It’s a recent conversion, one that apparently will be integrated into the ECG sometime down the road, and it’s a quiet walk, cutting between residential neighborhoods.
While the WB&A had its heyday around the turn of the century (19th to 20th), Baltimore’s illustrious rail history goes back further. The B&O Railroad isn’t just a square on a Monopoly board; the Baltimore & Ohio was the first long-distance, commercial railroad in the US, and a transformative force in Baltimore, Maryland, and the entire mid-Atlantic’s economy. Founded in 1829, the B&O became known as the “Railroad University of the United States,” leading a series of firsts that shaped the industry moving forward. While I’ll miss out on visiting that museum–it’s in Baltimore, after all–its ripple effect was felt throughout the areas I’ve already passed through.
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Those specialty routes, combined with the reduced traffic of a Sunday, made for a quiet walk. I had few encounters with people, aside from the occasional couple strolling by with a dog, though one car pulled over to greet me and wish me well. The sun blazed overhead, with not a cloud in the sky, and despite the proximity to DC, I was often surrounded by peaceful woods, shed of all but the most persistent leaves. Nonetheless, I crossed through enough strip malls to grab a bagel and banana at Safeway, a coffee at McDonald’s, and a donut at Dunkin’. I don’t even like donuts, but bathrooms are hard to come by this time of year. I saw a pick-up football game in a park, cardinals darting through bushes, and–most importantly–the first donk of the walk.
Near the walk’s end, I passed a plaque commemorating Lincoln, a “suburb established by progressive African Americans” in 1908. I had been struck in the last third of the walk by how the demographics had shifted; probably three-quarters or more of the people I saw driving by were African Americans, after the clear majority of Annapolis had been white. This area falls within Prince George’s County, and the data bears out what I observed–more than 60% of the county’s population is African American, while 12.3% is “white alone;” five of the top ten most affluent cities for African Americans are located in the county. It’s a particularly dramatic transformation given that PGC actually had the “highest ratio of enslaved persons” in the state prior to abolition.
Lincoln was one of a number of all-black towns that developed in the decades after abolition (sometimes many decades after), and PGC has plenty of other examples: North Brentwood, Glenarden, Chapel Hill, Rossville, and Ridgely. That last one gave me pause, as I actually passed through there two days ago! Unfortunately, there’s not much to miss; as Susan Pearl, a historian with the Prince George’s Historical Society, noted, ““There is little left of it. The church and school are still there.”
The persistence of history in new forms shines throughout this region, perhaps making Ridgely the exception to the trend.
