On Sunday morning, I decided to make a relatively short drive to Old Ellicott City (Maryland) for a visit. I lived in Ellicott City prior to purchasing my house, and I had made a few trips to Old Ellicott City (Ellicott City Historic District).

Ellicott City has quite a bit of history with it. It was founded in 1772 when John, Andrew, and Joseph Ellicott founded “Ellicott Mills”, which became one of the largest mill and manufacturing towns in the East.

In 1830, Ellicott City became the first section of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to open (B & O Railroad for you Monopoly enthusiasts). The station is the “Oldest surviving railroad station in America”.

Ellicott City has been in the news for flooding the last few years. There was a flash flood in July of 2016 that resulted in two deaths and major property damage. The town and the small business owners worked to rebuild (if they could). In May of 2018, the area was flooded again, due to the area getting 8 inches of rain in just over two hours. This resulted in one death and major property damage.

Some of the small business owners could not rebuild again. Some of the buildings are still not able to be occupied. There had been plans in place in 2017 to protect against the floods, but a project of such a large scope takes time. The town has been rebuilding, and there are plans in place to help provide protection in the event of future floods.

While I was there, I took a lot of pictures. I’ll share some of these with you now.

This is not the building of one of the original founders (he passed away in the late 1700s), but this just brings a little bit of historical attachment to the name.

I thought the sun coming over the building was a nice touch to the picture.

This is not named for Walt Disney. The Tavern came in the 1840s, but the building is from around 1790, which makes it one of the older buildings, and I think that’s pretty cool.

I think this former hotel looks great!

Every so often, you get these little nooks between buildings, some of which have stairways to go to the hills above.

This is another one of the older buildings.

This is one of the stairways that goes to the upper hills.

This is another nice looking building that’s more than 150 years old.

I’m half-way over a bridge that is over the river (I was walking, so there was no traffic stoppage for this picture).

Coming on the other side of the bridge to go back to the Historic District. Those are train tracks above the sign.

Just a couple of pictures regarding the B & O Station.

These two pictures are just to show the river running underneath the buildings. These buildings are at the lowest point of the area. They are sitting about 8-10 feet above the river, so it takes a lot to get this so high that it not only causes flooding for these buildings, but the others along the street that are on slightly higher ground.

I was definitely keeping myself busy taking pictures and enjoying the history that this town has to offer. I did stop at a couple of local places for food and drink, but I’ll write about that later. I hope you enjoyed me sharing a little bit of the town’s history with you!