Altamont is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Garrett County Garrett County () is the westernmost county of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,806, making it the third-least populous county in Maryland. Its county seat is Oakland. The county was named for John Work ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, United States. Altamont sits on the

Eastern Continental Divide The Eastern Continental Divide, Eastern Divide or Appalachian Divide is a hydrographic divide in eastern North America that separates the easterly Atlantic Seaboard watershed from the westerly Gulf of Mexico watershed. The divide nearly span ...

between the watershed of Crabtree Creek, which flows into the Savage River and eventually into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, and the watershed of the Little Youghiogheny River, which flows into the

Youghiogheny River The Youghiogheny River , or the Yough (pronounced Yok ) for short, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in the U.S. s ...

and eventually into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

. Altamont is notable as the spot at which the

B&O Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

crossed the divide. Today, that same spot is crossed by

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

Mountain Subdivision The Mountain Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Maryland and West Virginia. The line runs from Cumberland, Maryland, west to Grafton, West Virginia,CSX Transportation, Huntington, WV"Moun ...

. Altamont also features the intersection of

Maryland Route 135 Maryland Route 135 (MD 135) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as Maryland Highway, the state highway runs from U.S. Route 219 (US 219) in Oakland in Garrett County east to US 220 in McCoole in Al ...

(MD 135) and MD 495.

History

The name Altamont has its origin from the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

phrase meaning "High Mountain".

References

Unincorporated communities in Garrett County, Maryland Unincorporated communities in Maryland {{GarrettCountyMD-geo-stub