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It is summertime in Cecil County, and before these warm days are over, you may jump in your car to join a steady procession of people cruising toward the beach, mountains, or some other vacation spot.  Perhaps your outing will take you to quiet forests, ocean-cooled breezes, or clear mountain waters.  Whatever the case, this is the time of year when the road calls, and we steer toward some rest and relaxation.  Automobiles make our vacation trips relatively simple these days, but getting away long before President Eisenhower made “interstate” an everyday word was much more difficult.

When the first decade of the 20th century rolled around, there was no I-95, Route 40, U.S. 213, or other improved road to ease the way as people headed to getaway spots.  A railroad excursion or leisurely steamboat ride provided the means to escape to that relaxing place in the era before automobiles dominated transportation.  However, as the 1900s slipped all too fast toward World War II, good-hard surfaced roads started connecting towns, Americans began hitting the road in record numbers, and gas stations popped up.  The allure of easier car travel and the desire to find refreshing, cool waters during hot months caused many from Wilmington, Philadelphia, Chester, and Baltimore to come to Cecil County to sit under the sun, enjoy the refreshing Chesapeake Bay, and relish the scenic shoreline.

Vacation Spots

As word spread about Cecil’s first-rate beaches, day-trippers and folks on short escapes started heading this way with bathing suits, beach towels, and picnic baskets.  Holloway Beach, Port Herman, and White Crystal Beach were some sandy spots that called out to vacationers.  Though these spots could be reached by other means, the automobile had a tremendous impact on opening them up for ever-larger crowds.  As early as the Fourth of July 1916, you could see its effect on little resorts at the top of the Chesapeake.  That year, not so long before young men would march off to war in a faraway place, the Town Point Improvement Association held a grand celebration on the “beautiful Elk River at Port Herman,” the Cecil Whig reported.  Signing, sack and tub races, baseball, river trips, night illuminations, fireworks, and a phonographic concert, what more could one ask for?  Come any way you could, boat, auto, or carriage, the association urged.  When the sun set on the Chesapeake, hundreds of visitors, many in automobiles, had enjoyed the patriotic celebration, the newspaper wrote.

As vehicles helped put the roar in the 1920s, an Elkton newspaper, the Cecil Democrat, noted that if plans were carried out, Charlestown would be “one of the most popular summer spots in this section of Maryland.”  Over the past couple of years, cottages had been erected there” by city people. By 1923, Holloway Beach’s popularity was rising, according to the newspaper.  That summer, before the nation knew anything about the dark, dark days of the Great Depression, thousands of people visited the beach at one time, the Democrat observed.  The next season, the newspaper noted that J. W. Holloway had one of “the most attractive resorts to be found in the entire country.”  If you visited any day during the season, you would realize that “a miniature Coney Island, right here in our own county,” was easily accessible by auto, the reporter said.

Charlestown Becomes One of the Most Popular Destinations

Once summer was underway, a ride in a car around Cecil’s shoreline would turn up beaches crowded with day-trippers and people on short jaunts during a number of decades in the 20th century.  As sinister war clouds gathered over Europe, mobs crowded county beaches, guests rented cottages, and children merrily played at the water’s edge.  Down in Cecilton, traffic heading to the beaches has been a problem since the 1930s, Henry Mitchell recalled in an interview in the News Journal in 1991.  “Visitors to the resort area of Crystal Beach” jammed the highway through town every weekend.

Nevertheless, the times were changing.  The Chesapeake Bay Bridge between the Eastern and Western shores opened in July 1952.  This shortened “the long automobile trip around the head of the Bay” and eliminated the “uncomfortable slow trips” of the ferry to Kent Island, the State Highway Commission reported.  The John F. Kennedy Expressway (I-95) opened in 1963, providing even faster cruising to more distant destinations.  All this time, jumping in the car and heading to the Atlantic Ocean or other distant resorts was getting easier.

The Times Changed

Now that the summer season is well underway, chances are you will pile in the car and brace yourself for traffic jams on I-95, Route 50, or Delaware 1 as you head to your vacation spot.  While taking that outing, think of how hard it would have been to reach those places on the narrow, rough roads of the early 20th century.  Of course, you may have other thoughts — perhaps a Cecil County vacation spot — if you are sitting on a traffic-choked highway.

The Chesapeake pulls into the Elkton Station on April 30, for its inaugural run as a crowd waits.

In this piece, we’ll continue with a little more on the return of rush hour commuter rail service to Cecil County from 1978 to 1980.  See our earlier post for more information on this Amtrak passenger train.

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On a Sunday morning in the spring of 1978 (April 30), two normally quiet railroad stations in Cecil County buzzed with activity.  At Elkton, more than 150 people gathered, and a larger crowd of over 200 stood trackside in Perryville.  They were there to celebrate the return of commuter rail service between Philadelphia and Washington D.C. to Cecil County.  After the inaugural run, the train made weekday trips between the two cities. Stopping at Elkton at 7:52 a.m. and Perryville at 8:06.  In the evening, it was scheduled to arrive at Perryville at 5:58 p.m. and Elkton at 6:09.

The formerly quiet Perryville Amtrak Station is crowded on the morning of April 30, as the crowd waits for the commuter passenger train, the Chesapeake, to come into site.

At Elkton, Mayor Paul C. Dennis is joined by a large crowd for the return of passenger train service to the county seat.  The mayor is holding a ticket for the inaugural run.

The last time a regularly scheduled passenger train stopped at the Elkton Railroad Station was April 25, 1981. The Chesapeake, train 420, scheduled to arrive at the depot at 6:29 p.m. on its run north from Washington, D.C., completed its final run that spring evening a quarter-of-a-century ago. Passenger service had returned in 1978, when the Chesapeake, a new Amtrak train, started running between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. When it made its first run across the top of the Chesapeake on the morning of April 30, 150 over people greeted it at Elkton. Once the dignitaries disappeared after the inaugural run, a small cluster of passengers gathered along the southbound track each morning, waiting for the locomotive around the bend east of town so they could continue their journeys to Baltimore and Washington. In the evening, as people in Cecil County settled down for dinner, the train screeched to a stop at Elkton, as tired workers climbed off to head home for the night.

Since 1981 the quiet at the old depot has not been broken by the conductor shouting “All Aboard,” though many Acelas and other fast trains thunder past the old station that once served as an important commuter station in Cecil County.

   Forty years ago on Saturday, June 8, 1968, a hot sweltering day, thousands of people lined the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks in Cecil County, waiting for the funeral train carrying Robert F. Kennedy’s (RKF) body to pass through on its trip to Washington, D.C. The coaches carrying the Senator’s coffin on this special run departed from New York City on time at 1 p.m. It was scheduled to arrive in the District of Columbia at 5 p.m., but because of the millions of people huddled along the line waiting to pay their respects the special was running about four hours late.

I was a teenager waiting near the Elkton Station in ’68, and as I recall it was around 6 p.m. when it passed through the county. I remember seeing the flag draped casket through the window as the passenger cars passed by as members of the Kennedy family sadly waved to those huddled along the right-of-way. An Elkton Police Officer, Marshall Purner I believe, was at the station, helping to make sure the shocked crowd stayed safe as the funeral train passed by. It was largely a scene of grief and shock here. The people were stunned, many had tear stained faces and some individuals were holding hands as it became obvious that the train was nearing the depot. Some people in the quiet, respectful crowd carried flags. All along the road at North East, Charlestown, and Perryville, as well as at bridges and others spots, residents stood quietly by to pay their respects. A photographer for the Cecil Democrat, one of our weekly papers, snapped a shot of the rear passenger platform as it passed through here. Three members of the Kennedy family on the rear platform, grief obvious on their faces, acknowledged the Elkton crowd.  The newspaper estimated that there were 2,000 people at Elkton, 1,500 at Perryville, 1,000 at North East and smaller groups at almost efvery railroad crossing in the county.

Click here to see another Cecil County photo of RFK’s funeral train passing through Eklton

Welcome to a Window on Cecil’s Past. On this blog, I will post articles on the history of our county, both old and modern, and the personal stories of its people, first and secondhand. Installments may include pieces on places, folkways, events, the built environment, people, and about any aspect of our past that catches my attention. Additionally, I may periodically contemplate current happenings, as I investigate the convergence of dynamics that are changing our corner of northeastern Maryland in the 21st century. History, after all, is a continuum and understanding what happened in the past provides context for current developments.

The county’s history has fascinated me since 1968 when I started volunteering at the Historical Society of Cecil County as a teenager. For nearly a half-century now, all of my adult life, I’ve had a wonderful time discovering historical traces in photographs, oral histories, documents, and the material culture. In addition to rummaging through old books, documents, and crumbling newspapers as a way of investigating our past I had the privilege of learning so much from many knowledgeable people during those rapidly passing decades. I hope to share some of those insights here. As I search for windows on Cecil Past and post entries, I hope you will find them interesting since the county has so many stories waiting to be told.

I’ve been blogging on local history since April 2007, so I have a number of articles in the blogosphere. To start this weblog off, I will cross post some of my columns from other sites here as I begin reflecting on yesterday in Cecil County with some original essays.

Thanks for reading this piece and feel free to post comments.