The Rivalry Begins

Ellicott City's Main Street is the NationalPike, part of the road system that movedAmericans west. Only two decades after theroad was constructed, a new transportationrival appeared. In 1831, America's firstrailroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, introducedsteam engines to the Patapsco River Valley.The rivalry between the road and therailroad came together here.

Noisy, dirty, and at first, unreliable, therailroad soon gained the upper hand. By 1840,a stage coach trip to Cumberland on theNational Pike cost $9 and took twenty hours.The same trip on the B & O cost $7 and tookten. John H. B. Latrobe summed it up bestwhen he wrote, "That solitary horseman whocomes down [the National Road] at a trot thatdislocates half the bones in his body, andsends his saddle bags with grievousflapping is one of the few who still prefersits glow and dust to the shade and velocityof travel on the iron avenue to the west."While it was so important for the firstdecades of the 1800s, the National Roadwas doomed.

(photo caption) An 1832 traveler observed that "Ellicott's Mills is at the intersection of rail andturnpike roads; the two great thoroughfares to the west. We have the pleasure ofobserving the slow paced vehicles passing below us and the rapid easy movementof the railcars."

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Show me all markers in:  Ellicott City, MD  |  Howard County  |  21043  |  Maryland  |  United States of America

B&O Railroad Station
To Preserve the Union, a War Memorial
Old Stone Tavern House
The Phoenix Emporium
Turntable & Track
Ellicott City Station, 1831
The Lauman House
"Great Panes"
Hunt's General Store & Millinery Shop
Ellicott's Mills

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