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Cecil County EMS: A Quick History

It was Christmas night, and members of Cecil Post 15 of the American Legion in Elkton were home enjoying the holiday. Suddenly, in one Legionnaires’ home, the phone rang. “Hospital Calling!” the voice on the line said. “There’s been a serious automobile accident near Rising Sun,” the operator urgently blurted out. “If we can get the boy to a Baltimore hospital right away, there’ll be a chance for him.” Members of the Elkton Legion, rushing to where the ambulance was housed, rolled out on an errand of mercy.  After darting seventeen miles to the accident, the Doctor told them to step on it for the boy still had a chance. Dashing madly through the Maryland night, with two traffic officers opening up the road, they ate up the miles to Baltimore, reaching the hospital an hour and forty minutes after the phone’s jarring ring. But the trip had been in vain, reported the American Legion Monthly in 1929.

Except for its sad outcome, this run was typical of the type “drivers” at Cecil Post 15 encountered year in and year out as they operated the county’s only ambulance. It had been just a few years earlier, back in January 1926, when they had proposed the service. About the time the Legion started discussing the idea, an accident occurred that demonstrated the need for an emergency unit. The crack Federal Express of the Pennsylvania Railroad derailed near North East one January day. Two hundred passengers were shaken up; one lady broke her ankle. Later, as the wreck crew cleared the tracks, a rail buckled, breaking bones and seriously injuring two workmen, John Elmer and Edward Lewis. These men, though they needed an ambulance, had to wait until a passenger car was found to rush them to the hospital. Had medical transportation been available, suffering would have been alleviated said the Cecil Star, the newspaper in North East.

While train wrecks didn’t happen all that often, heart attacks and other everyday medical emergencies were common enough. For these sick and injured, they were “jolted over country roads on a bed of straw in the bottom of a farm wagon; at other times they were jammed in the backs of touring cars,” the Cecil Whig noted. To illustrate its point, the Whig described a lady who was taken to the hospital after she suffered a stroke. Her family tried to put here into a coupe, but failed. Then a touring car was found. After a great deal of effort, accompanied by obvious discomfort, she was finally put in the back seat of that car. Seeing that the person who was incapacitated faced a “grim ordeal,” the American Legion said, “Let’s raise the money for an ambulance . . . and operate it ourselves.” And that they did in short order, raising more than $7,000 through a community drive.

The Legion purchased a handsome Imperial Cadillac from H. M. Duyckinck of Rising Sun at a cost of $4,500. A parade and dance on April 23, 1926, marked the inauguration of the service; Post Commander John K. Burkley spoke of the spirit that had inspired the post to push for the vehicle.  Union Hospital received calls for the ambulance, relaying requests to the Legion.  A “chief driver” assembled a crew, and got the unit on the road. Near the end of 1926, the vehicle had already answer 124 calls.  When the Legion discontinued service in 1933, because of the growing financial burden, an Elkton garage operator and mayor of the town, Taylor McKenney, stepped in to fill the gap.  Having acquired the Cadillac, he repaired and repainted it, and announced he was running the vehicle on a fee basis.

As delivery of health care moved from home to hospital, the task of providing service became more demanding. In 1942, Singerly Fire Company purchased an ambulance, thus beginning fire company-based service here.“It really was just a hearst and you had two red cross flags and no siren,” recalls Henry Metz, a member of the fire company who nearly 60 years ago rode that ambulance on calls. “Finally, someone bought a little siren, one about the size of a bicycle siren, and put it up on front.” From that point forward, the person having a heart attack, the individual lying in a pool of blood, or the man or woman experiencing other medical problems could be assured that help was on the way.

The Maryland State Police once had an ambulance at the Conowingo Barrack, a 1936 Plymouth. John Stewart Landbeck, Sr., a corporal, who was second in command of the Barrack for a period during the 1940s, said it was mostly used for accident calls. “If we didn’t have an officer at the Barrack, we would call someone off the road to drive to the scene,” Landbeck recalled. In the years that followed, additional units were needed. One Wednesday afternoon in June 1953, town police officer Ottis Ferguson cruised the streets of North East, in a specially designed police car, a combination patrol vehicle and ambulance. The town had purchased it with assistance of the merchants and public.The fire company said it would house the unit in “one of the garages in the rear of the fire house at night,” the Advertiser and Perryville News Reported. Officials said Arnett Armour, Elmer Jones, and R. T. Meekins would serve as auxiliary drivers.

Meanwhile, other fire companies soon entered the field. The Community Fire Company of Perryville purchased a used unit from Harford Memorial Hospital in April 1955. Rising Sun followed in November. The next year, North East bought a Buick.A few years later, Chesapeake City got a unit (1963). Water Witch of Port Deposit formed its service in 1964, after acquiring a secondhand unit from Oxford, PA.

With vehicle now placed around the county, the next improvement involved advances in emergency medical care. At first service advanced from that of “scoop-and-run” to one that could carry out basic first aid and life-saving steps. Units were carrying resuscitators that pushed air back into lungs that had stopped working by the 1960s. On calls, crews would gather up an oxygen tank, splints, bandages, and blankets as they dashed to the aid of a victim.

By the dawn of the 1970s, the nation was ready to use its trauma-care experience from the Vietnam War to improve survival from accidents and medical emergencies; the days when someone with little training could drive to an accident scene, bundle the injured into the back of the ambulance, and cart them off the hospital were quickly fading. In the first step toward providing prehospital emergency care, fire company members from the area started completing the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) courses. This training expanded their capabilities well beyond those of earlier personnel; now they were learning techniques such as patient assessment, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and fracture and shock management

In 1978 Singerly Fire Company graduated the first class of Advanced Life Support providers, lanching the path to today’s modern system.  This group of six graduates were taught by Frank Muller and they could push drugs, defibrillate patients and provide other advanced treatments under the superivision of the ER physician.

At the request of county fire companies, two Cecil County Emergency Medical Service units responded to their first calls in 1988, marking the arrival of a paid county program. This program was designed to help companies handle day time calls. On its first day, September 19, 1988, the units responded to five incidents. Advances in training and medical technology continued, and in 1991 twenty-two individuals committed themselves to even more hours of classroom study, grueling tests, and clinical shifts in the hospital as they become certified paramedics. Their graduation, Michael J. Browne, Deputy Chief of Cecil County Emergency Services and the instructor for the course said, “marked the completion of the first full paramedic training program here.”

“Nine volunteer ambulance stations, eight of which have ambulances (Cecilton runs a first response vehicle).” provide Emergency Medical Services today, and all of these companies have personnel trained to the Advanced Life Support level, according to Browne. Cecil County government assists the volunteer fire companies by running “a supplemental service” adds Browne. “We [Cecil County Government] have three units in service at all times and there are two paramedics on each unit.” This integrated system of volunteer and paid providers responded to some 8,000 calls last year. It is this system of career and volunteer providers, actually Cecil County’s Emergency Medical Service Systems, that just received statewide recognition as one of the best in Maryland.

American Legion Ambulance, Elkton, Cecil Post

The American Legion Ambulance at Annapolis, probably in 1926.

For more see

State Police Patrol Northeastern Maryland Out of Conowingo & Provide Ambulance Service

North East Police Pioneer Law Enforcement’s Involvement in Ambulance Service

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Another Cecil County Vacation Spot – White Crystal Beach

We’re enjoying a great Labor Day Weekend here at the top of the Chesapeake Bay.  With temperature in the low 80s and brilliant Sunshine, we took the opportunity to drive around some old beaches and harbors at the top of the bay.  Betterton Beach had a great crowd out enjoying the perfect Sunday, but back to Cecil County.  White Crystal Beach was one of the shore resorts that drew crowds from the nearby urban areas for a large part of the 20th century.  Here’s a telephone directory advertisement for the beach from the 1940 Cecil County Directory.  Below that you will see a photo of the Manor House at White Crystal Beach.  Click here for an additional images

 

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Recalling Holloway Beach, Charlestown, in the 1930s

The cooling water of the Chesapeake Bay made Cecil's resorts very popular in the 1930s
The cooling water of the Chesapeake Bay made Cecil County, located at the very top of the Chesapeake Bay, a favorite spot.

 

      Another summer is quickly slipping away as students get ready to return to school Monday and we prepare to mark the unofficial end of summer with Labor Day.   Still for August, a period that is better known for the dog days of Summer, we’ve experienced some of the most beautiful weather and the forecast looks great for the upcoming week.  Right now as I blog this piece, the temperature is in the high 70s and a beautiful partly cloudy sky comfortably warms the late August Saturday in Cecil County.  Well as the unofficial end of summer nears, let’s give the season a send off by reminiscing a little with some old photos of Holloway Beach in Charlestown.

 

This image is from a postcard mailed to Mr. & Mrs. R. M. Elrick of Jeannette, PA in 1939.Though the water was the draw, it was our nearby proximity to nearby cities that caused our beaches resorts to grow.

We’ll post a few more photos as we wind our way to Labor Day.
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An Outstanding Late Evening Program on WERU, Blue Hill, Maine Has Cecil County Connections

As I worked on some syllabi for the upcoming semester with the midnight hour approaching here on the Chesapeake, I surfed over to WERU, an outstanding non-commercial radio station in Blue Hill, Maine.  We discovered WERU several years ago while vacationing in Maine and always listen when we are in the coastal area.  A few years ago they added streaming on the Net so the excellent content is available in Cecil County and everywhere.

Mark Elwin’s program “Mama Popcorn”  was streaming when I surfed over and Mark was playing some great soul and funk music.  As he worked the show and talked about the artists I heard him play a shaft piece, “Way Back Home”  by Bernard Purdie, along with other fine selections.  I’ve always found the noncommerical programs on WERU to be excellent, but I’ve never called them to let them know.  Well I just had to give Mark a call to let him know that he had listener from “Pretty Purdie’s” hometown, Elkton, MD.  I also called to let him let him know how much we appreciated his program, as well as the other fine DJs at WERU, a great radio station.

It wasn’t too many months ago that we were able to attend Bernard’s, “Bringing It Home Concert” in Elkton and we’re looking forward to his biography which is coming out soon.  I’ve only met Bernard a few times, but it was always a pleasant experience to meet the R & B luminary.

And thanks to WERU for producing all sorts of great programming.

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Elkton Considers Selling Historic Acreage to Developer

The following is a letter to the editor published in the Cecil Whig on Friday, Aug. 15. This piece is cross-posted from the blog, someonenoticed.wordpress.com, which contains much more information in this attempt. Please see that blog for much more information on this subject.)

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The Mayor and Commissioners of Elkton are considering a proposal to sell 20 acres of public park land near the end of Landing Lane. When this parcel was acquired at the end of 2002, it was joined with another 42 publically held acres to form a sizable open space near the center of the county’s most densely developed area. The board has discussed hiring a consultant to oversee the process since a large retailer is interested in building on the site. At several meetings, Commissioner Gary Storke spoke against the loss of the open space and hiring of the consultant. Other officials either supported the proposal or were largely silent on this public land policy matter.

The property was acquired through funding provided by Maryland’s Open Space Program. In the grant application, media coverage, and governmental records, the town’s leadership noted the significance of preserving this space just a few years ago. Comments such as it is a critical part of the greenway and park system, is consistent with the comprehensive plan, contains rich archaeological resources, and is an important part of the town’s heritage are noted. It was also stated that this acquisition relieved development pressure, protecting one of Elkton’s few resources on the National Register of Historic Places, Elk Landing.

These were valid statements when officials originally made them and they are accurate today. The land did not become a less valuable open space once a commercial developer expressed an interest in the property.

Mike Dixon

Elkton

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Main Steet Fire in 1947

Main Street in Elkton before the 1947 fire.
Main Street Elkton is busy prior to the big fire of 1947. Source: Robinson Collection, Historical Society of Cecil County.

 

On December 20, 1947, the largest fire in down­town Elkton’s history erupted in the predawn dark­ness of the bitterly cold night.  At about 5:30 that morning, the fire whistle sounded, piercing the silence of one of the longest nights of the year.

Someone ringing up the telephone operator had reported smoke seeping out of the Janis Shoe Store on Main St., one-half block from the engine house.  At that hour, Police Officer William D. Pinder was nearby, making his early morning rounds in the patrol car. He reached the scene moments later and started awakening oc­cupants of the apartments above the fire.  Then, he helped night clerks Alfred Taylor and Charles Gatchell at the Ritz and New Central Hotels.

That Saturday morning, the coldest day of the year, the temperature stood at 16° before the first ray of sun poked over the horizon. Awakened to shouts of fire and the smell of smoke, about 100 guests rushed from the endangered hotels into the frigid air, newspapers noted.  Arriving firefighters found flames “eating through the first floor” of the shoe store. With Elkton’s full force of pumpers, an Ahrens ‘Fox and Hale, strug­gling to confine the fire to the store, Chief Caspar Dunbar im­mediately ordered a second alarm. Engines from Chesa­peake City, North East and Newark, Del., rushed toward the county seat.

Elkton barber Tony Trotta recalled that morning. In 1947, he worked at the shop where he plied his trade for most of his life.  In those days, though, it was the Anthony Williams’ Barber Shop and Jewelry Store – his fa­ther-in-law’s shop.  Hearing the approaching siren, he walked a few doors up the street to see what was happening. “I got there about the time the firemen did. Some fire was coming through the first floor, but, suddenly, about the time they started to put water on it, flames roared through the building,” Trotta detailed.

Billowing smoke could be seen for miles. Before long, with ice forming on ladders, streets, power lines, and fire trucks, the blaze burst through the roof of the building, and high winds fanned it into the next-door A&P Food Store. From the grocery store, the fire spread to the Ritz Hotel and Restaurant.  It was spreading rapidly through the old brick, wood, and plaster buildings of Main Street. The whole downtown was threatened. Chief Dunbar called for a third alarm, bringing aid from Perryville, Port Deposit, Rising Sun, and Oxford, Pa., Fire apparatus and firefighters were now beginning to jam the narrow, ice-glazed street, Elkton’s principal thoroughfare.

Elkton main street fire
Smoke billows up from the New Central Hotel that December morning.  Source:  Singerly Fire Company Museum

     Despite the attempt to quell it, the conflagration continued its eastward march. Next in its path was the New Central Hotel, which also contained the New Theater, a restaurant, a liquor store and a photographer’s studio. A call for further assistance, a fourth alarm, went out on telephone lines to Wilmington, Aberdeen, Havre de Grace, Mill Creek and Christiana. 

Former Singerly Fire Company President Henry Metz, calling it “one of the worst fires” he’d seen, remembered that day. “In that area, many buildings were tied together and the roofs were all tin. The fire mushroomed under those roofs.”  Metz and a crew of men spent most of the morning manning hose lines in the building west of the shoe shop, an auto parts store. Aided by a favorable wind, they checked the conflagration’s westward spread. It wasn’t until Wilmington’s ladder truck ar­rived that the eastward march was stopped, Metz recalled. “Those buildings were mostly three-story in the front and four-story in the back. We didn’t have the ladders to get above it.”

        The Wilmington Bureau of Fire’s Engine Company 7 and Lad­der Truck Three, manned by a squad of 14 firefighters, started from the city at 9:14 a.m., the Democrat observed. By the time com­panies from those places started arriving, the fire had eaten through the wall of the New Central Hotel building and was threatening the adjoining J.J. Newberry’s Five and Ten Cent Store.  At the height of the fire, Chief Dunbar directed a force of well over 100 firemen and 25 pieces of apparatus. As more of the town engines began tapping the municipal water mains and with the town pumping at full capacity, water pressure dropped. Six pumpers were taken to the Big Elk Creek to pump water to en­gines battling the inferno.

         Flying low over midtown, taking photographs, were “new planes” from the daily papers, the Maryland News Courier ob­served.  Some of those photos show hose crews on the roof of J.J. Newberry’s and in the street. They’re pouring water into the burning New Central Hotel, trying to keep the fire from spread­ing into the five-and-dime store.  When the Wilmington squad arrived, they went into action with a 100-foot ladder truck. High above the fire on the ladder, one city firefighter shot water onto the blaze, saving J.J. Newber­ry’s and checking the eastward spread, the Baltimore Sun said.

         Shortly after 12 p.m., the fire was declared under control. “A potential disaster in the hotels,” fire officials told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “was averted by the quick action of the Elkton Patrolman and hotel employees who ran quickly from room-to-room to awaken guests.”   The fire had raged for almost seven hours and burned a “half-million dollar” hole in the center of Elkton’s business district, de­stroying some of the largest and most important structures in town and damaging others.  The buildings on the south side of Main Street destroyed by the blaze were those clustered around the foot of North Street.

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Cecil County Becomes a Vacation Spot

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.

ericsson line
Before the opening of roads, steamers provided access to Cecil’s beaches. This is the cover of a marketing brochure produced by the Ericson Line (Source: personal collection)

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.

white crystal beach
On a summer day between the World Wars, White Crystal Beach is busy (source: personal collection)

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
cecil county vacation brochure
A 1920s or ’30 brochure marketing Cecil County as a vacation spot (Source: peronal collection)

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.

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Return of Passenger Train to Elkton

Amtrak's passenger train, the Chesapeake stops at ElktonThe 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 Chesapeake at the Perryville Railroad Station.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.

passenger train at the Elkton Station

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.

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An Ancient Punishment – The Whipping Post Last Used in Cecil in 1940

 Criminal codes on the Delmarva Peninsula permitted judges to sentence perpetrators of crimes such as theft, breaking and entering, wife-beating, and more to lashes on the bare back well into the 20th.  Under the original colonial statutes, wrongdoers received this ancient punishment for a broader range of crimes, including forgery, counterfeiting, Sabbath breaking, blasphemy, witchcraft, and dozens of other offenses.  As enlightened corrections emerged in the nation primarily based on imprisonment, this punishment was dropped from the codes in most states, but it persisted on the Peninsula far longer.

Delaware whipping post
The Whipping Post at the Old New Castle DE Jail. (Photo Credit: Delaware State Archives)

Maryland, perhaps the next to last state to use flogging, moved more quickly than Delaware to eradicate whippings.  Until 1809, the post figured prominently in the early administration of justice in the Free State when the code was repealed, and only slaves were whipped, the Baltimore Sun reported.  “The constitutional convention of 1864 abolished the entire law of punishment by whipping, and it remained dead until the Legislature of 1882 resurrected it and applied it solely to wife beaters.”

Under this law, a convicted wife-beater stood at the whipping post and received ten lashes in 1896.   The punishment took place in the jail yard on North Street in Elkton, “opposite where James H. Truss was executed a few months earlier.  The yellow pine post had been erected by ex-sheriff Clinton J. White and Sheriff Mackey, who had borrowed a whip from Sheriff Gillis of New Castle, De.

The last time a corporal punishment sentence was handed down in Cecil County was December 1940 when the Circuit Court ordered that a 42-year carpenter convicted of wife-beating serve 60 days in jail and receive ten lashes at the whipping post.  A local newspaper, the Cecil Democrat, remarked that this was the first time in 46 years that a person was sentenced to the whipping post in Cecil. The cat-o-nine-tails were wielded by Sheriff David Randolph, who carried out the punishment in public.  The whip was last used on the Western Shore in Prince Georges County in 1945 when Judge Marbury ordered lashes for a prisoner.  A Frederick County magistrate in 1952 ordered ten lashes for a defendant, but Governor McKeldin pardoned the “barbarous and inhumane” punishment.

Delaware’s criminal code permitted floggings to occur until 1972.  That year, Governor Russell W. Peterson signed a revised criminal code in Delaware, which abolished the outdated punishment.  With the passing of that act, Delaware became the last state in the nation to hold onto the pre-Revolutionary punishment.  Flogging was last used in 1952 in the first state when a wife beater was flogged.

Elkton jail whipping post
In Cecil County, the whipping post was in the yard at the old jail on North Street in Elkton. (Source: personal collection)
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All Aboard at the Elkton Railroad Station

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.

The Elkton Passenger Train Station
The Elkton Passenger Station in the 1930s

This photo shows Elkton’s Pennsylvania Station soon after the modern depot opened about 1930, the cars of commuters and travelers jamming the parking lot during those days of the Great Depression.
—- Elkton, a railroad town — Chronology

1837
January 9 — A train operated by the Wilmington & Susquehanna Railroad makes an experimental run to Elkton, as work continues on building the line to the Susquehanna River. Many townspeople were on hand to greet the first arrival of
a train of cars.

1837
July 31 — the road opens for regular service. For more than a century, the
railroad plays an ever-growing role in Elkton’s development.

1858
The Philadelphia Wilmington & Baltimore railroad guide says: “The railroad has proved of great advantage for Elkton . . . The population of this place prior to construction of the road was about 900 although 160 years had elapsed since its settlement, while since that time the number of inhabitants has increased fully 50-percent.

1938
Eighteen passenger trains a day stop at the Elkton station.

1963
Only three trains a day stopped at the depot.

1967 — When the Pennsylvania Railroad published a new timetable on April 30, Elkton was no longer listed as a stop.

1978
After a period of interruption, passenger service returned to Elkton 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, 150 people greeted it at Elkton.

1981
April 25 — Train 420, scheduled to stop in Elkton at 6:29 p.m. on its trip north from Washington, D.C., makes its call at the old depot. Since then, the quiet at the old depot has not been broken by a conductor shouting “All Aboard” through Acela and other fast trains thunder past the old station that once served as an important commuter station in Cecil County.