Mount Savage 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 ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

(CDP) in Allegany 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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 873. A small blue-collar community, Mount Savage lies at the base of

Big Savage Mountain The two Big Savage Mountain (Maryland and Pennsylvania) summits are part of Savage Mountain. The peak of Big Savage Mountain in Maryland is High Rock, at 2986 feet.: Savage Mountain (PA)Big Savage Mountain (PA)Big Savage Mountain (MD)/ref>

in the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

, between the cities of

Frostburg Frostburg is a city in Allegany County, Maryland, United States, and is at the head of the Georges Creek Valley. It is part of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located west of Cumberland, the town is one of the first cities ...

and

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

. It began as a small farming settlement in the mid-19th century, but it was not until 1844 that the region was put on the nation's map with the pressing of the first

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...

in the United States. After this claim to fame, Mount Savage became the fifth largest city in Maryland. Named as the headquarters for the Mount Savage Railroad and later the

Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad The Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad (C&P) was an American railroad which operated in Western Maryland. Primarily a coal hauler, it was owned by the Consolidation Coal Company, and was purchased by the Western Maryland Railway (WM) in 1944. ...

(C&P), the area was deemed an industrial center. In addition to the rail businesses, Mount Savage attracted a

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

, two brick

refractories In materials science, a refractory material or refractory is a material that is resistant to Thermal decomposition, decomposition by heat, pressure, or chemical attack, and retains strength and form at high temperatures. Refractories are polycr ...

, and several local merchants. In this company town, the industries shaped the economy and topography of Mount Savage, building housing for workers and donating land for schools, churches, and other public buildings. It was a cultural melting pot attracting English businessmen and Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Italian, and German workers. With this diverse mix of cultures, the identity of Mount Savage was molded into a close-knit community. Despite the loss of the industries to the region, Mount Savage continues to celebrate its hard-working traditions. The Mount Savage Historic District was 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 ...

in 1983.

Early history

The name origin of Mount Savage is derived from a land surveyor, Thomas Savage, who happened to be traveling through the area in 1736. The Archibald Arnold family later settled "Arnold's Settlement", now Mount Savage, around 1774. The town is the oldest in Allegany County to have a group of the same family to pioneer a town.Anonymous. "Arnold's Settlement." Heritage Press. Vol. 1, No. 8 (1972), p. 1. The Arnolds were Catholic farmers originating from

southern Maryland Southern Maryland is a geographical, cultural and historic region in Maryland composed of the state's southernmost counties on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. According to the state of Maryland, the region includes all of Calvert, Cha ...

.Charles Carney. "The History of Mount Savage." University of Maryland, May 1967. The Arnold family settled northeast of the current town, along a Native American trail which was later known as "Turkey Foot Road". The Arnolds established a hotel, "Arnold's Hotel", which welcomed the pioneers who were heading out west towards the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

Valley. They also had a self-sustaining farm which became part of the present-day Glen Savage Dairy Farm. The site of the hotel is along an 1804 alteration to the Turkey Foot Road. The Arnold family eventually owned most of the land of the present-day Mount Savage, Archibald sometimes purchasing at a time. Some areas of land that Arnold purchased were documented only as "Move About", "Tomahawk" and "Durbin's Neglect". In the early 19th century Mount Savage was primarily a self-sufficient farming community with no real need to embark onto enterprises with neighboring towns or industries. Mount Savage was the only town west of Cumberland with a Catholic church, so many families from neighboring states and towns traveled there for

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

. Upon completion of the

National Road The National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road) was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the Federal Government of the United States, federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, the road connected the Pot ...

, settlers headed west by the thousands, flooding the Cumberland-Mount Savage area and calling attention to Mount Savage's mineral wealth.

Industrial history

The Maryland and New York Iron and Coal Company was incorporated in 1837. This important company was established by an Englishman, Benjamin Howell, who was one of the many travelers along the National Road. The company built the

Mount Savage Iron Works The Mount Savage Iron Works operated from 1837 to 1868 in Mount Savage, Maryland. The ironworks were the largest in the United States in the late 1840s, and the first in the nation to produce heavy rails for construction of railroads. The works wer ...

, which utilized the

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

that was abundant in the Mount Savage area. Following the construction of

blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric ...

s in 1839, the company built the Mount Savage Railroad in 1844 to connect the town to Cumberland and with the

Baltimore and Ohio 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 ...

(B&O). The company produced about 200 tons of iron a week in 1845. The Mount Savage works was the only company in America to manufacture heavy railroad iron at that time. With the flourishing industry upon Mount Savage,

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

and

locomotives A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the u ...

were also being manufactured and transported to neighboring towns and states by way of the new railroad system. The most prosperous coal mines were the Eckhart Mines, located southwest of Mount Savage, which produced

bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the seams. It ...

. The Mount Savage railroad system became the main supplier to the B&O as well as the

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, wh ...

. By 1852 the

iron works An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''. Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...

was considered to be the largest in the United States. By 1864, the Union Mining Company was established in Allegany County. This company controlled most of the clay and brick exports. Little Mount Savage had officially grown into a legendary, American industrial center. The iron works faced competition from facilities in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

region. The company's rolling mill was shut down in 1868 and the blast furnaces ceased operation c. 1870.Allen, Jay D. (1970)
"The Mount Savage Iron Works, Mount Savage, Maryland: A Case Study in Pre-Civil War Industrial Development."
Graduate thesis,

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

. The brick works continued to operate successfully and became the principal industry in the town through the late 20th century. The C&P Railroad acquired the Mount Savage Railroad in 1854, and built shops to manufacture locomotives and other rolling stock in Mount Savage in 1866. The railroad operated through the mid-20th century.

Demographics

As of the 2010 census, there were 873 people in 338 households living within the boundaries of Mount Savage. 236 of those were family households. The racial makeup of Mount Savage was 96.4%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

, 0.6%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 0.1%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 1.3% some other race, and 1.6%

two or more races 2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and only even prime number. Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many cultur ...

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

of any race were 1.6% of the population. There were 338 households, out of which 32.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.3% were headed by married couples living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.2% were non-family households. 26.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.1% were someone living alone who was 65 years or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.10. In Mount Savage the population was spread out, with 23.1% below the age of 18, 8.0% from 18 to 24, 25.5% from 25 to 44, 27.0% from 45 to 64, and 16.5% who were 65 and older. The median age was 40.3. 49.5% of the population was male and 50.5% of the population was female. For the period 2007–11, the median household income was $47,098 and the median income for a family was $48,833. The median income for male full-time workers was $53,153 versus $19,953 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

for Mount Savage was $18,636. 3.7% of families and 7.1% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...

Geography

Mount Savage is located at an elevation of in the valley of Jennings Run in western Allegany County. Mount Savage Run flows into

Jennings Run Jennings Run (Garrett County) and Jennings Run (Allegany County) are Maryland tributaries to Three Forks Run and Wills Creek (North Branch Potomac River tributary), Wills Creek, respectively. Jennings Run (Allegany County) begins near Frostburg, ...

in Mount Savage.

Maryland Route 36 Maryland Route 36 (also known as MD 36 or Route 36) is a state highway located in Allegany County, Maryland, Allegany County, Maryland, United States. MD 36's southern terminus is at the West Virginia Route 46 (WV 46) bridge in We ...

runs through the community, leading southwest to Frostburg and east to Cumberland. Sampson Rock, the summit of

, rises to the west of the village.

Historic sites and museums

* Mount Savage Museum & Historical Park * Union Mining Company Office Building * C&P Railroad Office building * Remains of the iron furnace where the first iron rail was rolled

References

External links

Mount Savage Historical Society

{{authority control Census-designated places in Allegany County, Maryland Populated places in the Cumberland, MD-WV MSA Census-designated places in Maryland