Marion Station, also known as Marion, 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 ...

in Somerset County,

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. It is located at the northern intersection of Maryland routes 413 and 667. After the arrival of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

arm known as the "Eastern Shore Railroad" toward Crisfield in 1866, Marion was locally hailed as the "strawberry capital of the world". After the trains stopped coming it went into decline, with some sources even hailing it as a ghost town.

History

Marion Station was once known as Coulbourne Creek until the

line known as the Crisfield Secondary Branch of the Eastern Shore Railroad reached Crisfield. A train station was built in the town thanks to John C. Horsey, who paid for the right-of-way for the train and the station house. The town was then renamed Marion; the name was taken from Horsey's daughter. Because of the railroad, Marion Station experienced an economic boom, and became the world's leader in

strawberry The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...

production, utilizing the railroad to ship strawberries across the country. Large trains came to Marion's train station every day to collect strawberries, pulling loaded ice-refrigeration cars out to sell them in large cities. The town saw the construction of several businesses along its Main Street (now Maryland Route 667) corridor: a movie house, grocery store, blacksmith shop, and pharmacy, including a primary school, and several churches. A garage was also built, as was a bar and a volunteer fire department. Marion Station also possessed the first hospital ever built in Somerset County, and the town grew to the point where it needed its own police force. After several decades, however, the town began to slip into decline. This occurred in the 1950s, when the trains stopped coming to Marion for strawberries. The railroad line was officially abandoned on April 1, 1976 when

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

was established, and the steel rails were removed from the railroad bed later; however, the railroad was supplanted earlier by the construction of

Maryland Route 413 Maryland Route 413 (also known as MD 413 or Route 413) is a state highway in Somerset County in the U.S. state of Maryland. The route runs from a dead end at Crisfield's city dock, which is located on the Tangier Sound, northeast to U.S. Rou ...

's current alignment. Many of the old buildings have been torn down or are now vacant. The train station still stands in the town. In 1997, a revitalization project began to restore the building. It was reopened in the early 2000s as the new Accohannock Indian Museum, containing various relics from the time when Marion Station was a bustling city. The fire department was moved across MD 667 to where it currently stands; the old building is now a flea market. The former pharmacy is located on the short stub of Charles Cannon Road between MD 413 and 667, and has been boarded up for decades. Even the two gas stations located in the town have both closed; the last one closed in the early 2000s. Train Station Marion Maryland

The lack of trains coming for the strawberries prompted the collapse of Marion's strawberry industry. The fields are now dominated by other food crops, such as

soybeans The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu and ...

and

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

; other fields remain completely vacant, such as the field directly east of the center of the community (between Hudson's Corner Road and Tulls Corner Road). Additionally, Marion Station is home to a very large organic vegetable farm, which was started by sociologists from

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. In the 2000s, housing development began to arise in Marion Station, along the Charles Cannon Road corridor west of the community, making the community a retirement destination. The Lankford House, Pomfret Plantation, Quindocqua United Methodist Church,

Watkins Point Farm Watkins Point Farm, also known as the James L. Horsey Farm and John T. Adams Farm, is a historic home located at Marion Station, Somerset County, Maryland. It is a three-part frame and sawn log dwelling. The one-room plan sawn log house was ere ...

, and Williams' Conquest are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Education

The building for Marion Sarah Peyton and Elementary School is located on MD 667: Hudson Corner Road, and once served grades 3–5 for the southern half of Somerset County. After the consolidation of schools which occurred in 2004, however, those grades were moved to Crisfield, and the school closed down. It was reopened in 2007 for adult GED classes. Living Hope Christian School: The only school in Marion now. It is a recently added school opened in 2020. The corner of Hollands Crossing and Crisfield Marion rd.

Transportation

Main roads

Maryland Route 667 is the main road of the community, housing most of the important facilities in years past and today, such as the volunteer fire department, the train station, the school, and the post office. The road crosses Tulls Corner and Charles Cannon Road; MD 667 is also known as Hudson Corner Road north of and Crisfield–Marion Road south of this intersection. At the turn of the 20th century, Crisfield–Marion Road was known as Main Street. MD 667 also links the town to Pocomoke and

U.S. Route 13 U.S. Route 13 (US 13) is a north–south U.S. highway established in 1926 that runs for from Interstate 95 (I-95) just north of Fayetteville, North Carolina to US 1 in the northeastern suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in Morrisville ...

southbound to

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. The speed limit on the road in town is 30 mph. Tulls Corner Road leads east out of the town, to the ghost town of Tulls Corner. It passes by a facility for the elderly. Between this facility and Marion, the road was Maryland Route 357 until the early 1990s.MD Roads: Routes 340-359
02/12/2009. Charles Cannon Road is a continuation of Tulls Corner Road after it intersects both MD 413 and MD 667, and eventually leads north to Kingston, also granting access to the boat dock. A small portion of this road, between MD 413 and the subtransmission power line crossing, was also MD 357. Both Tulls Corner Road and Charles Cannon Road largely serve residences in the community. Also important to the community is

, the main highway between Crisfield and points north on US 13. It is paralleled closely by MD 667 through the community and carries a speed limit of .

Navigable rivers

The

Big Annemessex River The Big Annemessex River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula. It rises in Kingston, Somerset C ...

passes by the town, with a small local arm known as Coulbourne's Creek. The convergence of these two bodies of water is accessible by Coulbourne Creek Road, off Charles Cannon Road, where a public boat dock is located. The activity in Marion was centered around this area before the economic boom brought about by the Eastern Shore Railroad and the shift to strawberry farming.

Public transportation

Shore Transit Shore Transit is a public transit agency that provides commuter bus service on the Lower Eastern Shore of the state of Maryland in the United States, serving Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. A major transfer point is located in Salis ...

has two routes which serve the community: Route 706 North and Route 706 South. The bus is accessible from two stops within the area: Marion Volunteer Fire Department and the former Marion Sarah Peyton Elementary School, and both operate along the MD 667 corridor within the business area before returning to MD 413.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Somerset County, Maryland Unincorporated communities in Maryland Maryland populated places on the Chesapeake Bay