Existing comment:
The Historic National Road: The Road That Built the Nation:
Parrsville & Ridgeville: Two Towns at the Four Corners:
Here at Milestone 31, about 130 feet southeast of its original location, the Baltimore and Frederick-Town Turnpike created two towns as it moved west. Both Parrsville and Ridgeville are now a part of Mount Airy.
Parrsville, to the east, was named for a nearby spring that creates the headwaters of the Patapsco River, flowing east into Baltimore Harbor. Parr's Spring, an important landmark for early surveyors, is the point of four corners between Carroll, Montgomery, Howard and Frederick Counties.
Just west, Ridgeville is located on a 830-foot tall ridge, the highest point on the National Pike between Baltimore and Braddock Heights. Traveling over this ridge after 1831, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad hitched up horses to pull cars up two inclines on the east side. Brakemen would guide the train rolling down two more inclines on the west side. After a tunnel was constructed in 1901, travel by rail eclipsed travel by road. |