Solomons, also known as Solomons Island, is an unincorporated community 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

Calvert County Calvert County is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 92,783. Its county seat is Prince Frederick. The county's name is derived from the family name of the Barons of Baltimore, the proprietors of t ...

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 population was 2,368 at the 2010 census, up from 1,536 in 2000. Solomons is a popular weekend destination spot in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area.

Geography

Solomons is located at the southern tip of Calvert County at (38.336431, −76.464102). It includes Solomons Island and mainland on the north side of the mouth of

Patuxent River The Patuxent River is a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay in the state of Maryland. There are three main river drainages for central Maryland: the Potomac River to the west passing through Washington, D.C., the Patapsco River to the northeast ...

, where it meets the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

. It is just across from the U.S. Naval Air Station Patuxent River (on the south side of the mouth of the Patuxent River). According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

, the Solomons CDP has a total area of , of which is land and , or 14.76%, is water, consisting mainly of Back Creek, a tidal inlet that extends north from the Patuxent River.

Climate

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

system, Solomons has a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...

, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps. Monthly average temperatures on Solomons Island range from 36.7° F in January to 78.7° F in July

History

Early settlers

Originally called Bourne's Island (1680), then Somervell's Island (1740), Solomons takes its name from 19th century

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

businessman Isaac Solomon, who established a cannery there shortly after the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. Solomon's home still stands on the front of the island. The area has been inhabited since colonial times.

Shipbuilding and Maritime Activity

In the 19th century, shipyards developed to support the island's fishing fleet. The Marsh Shipyard built

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

s and sloops but became famous for its

bugeye The bugeye is a type of sailboat developed in the Chesapeake Bay for oyster dredging. The predecessor of the skipjack, it was superseded by the latter as oyster harvests dropped. Origins Between 1820 and 1865, the state of Maryland banned th ...

s, the forerunner of the skipjack. In the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore ...

Joshua Barney Joshua Barney (6 July 1759 – 1 December 1818) was an American Navy officer who served in the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War and as a captain in the French Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. He later achieved the rank o ...

's flotilla sailed from here to attack British vessels on

. The deep, protected harbor has been a busy marine center ever since. '' Kronprinzessin Cecilie'', a 1906-built German ocean liner which during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

was commandeered (and renamed ''Mount Vernon'' (ID-4508) by the US, was

laid up A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently needed; they are partially or fully decommissioned. A reserve fleet is informally said to be "in mothballs" or "mothballed"; a ...

at Solomons in 1920.

Supporting the U.S. Navy during World War II

During World War II, the island was chosen by the Allied command as the site for training amphibious invasion forces. The lessons learned at Solomons proved invaluable on

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

, at

Tarawa Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
''

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...

, and in numerous other military operations. Three naval bases were established at the mouth of the Patuxent River. These three facilities made a major contribution to the war effort and brought new jobs to local residents. Between 1942 and 1945, the population of Solomons increased from 263 to more than 2,600. Over 60,000 troops trained at Solomons during the war. Coincidentally, many of the servicemen who trained at the Solomons base in Maryland were sent to fight in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

in the Pacific Ocean. Solomons was the site of the following U.S. Navy activities during the war: * Naval Mine Warfare Test Station * Naval Amphibious Training Base * Mine Warfare Experimental Station * Naval Dispensary, Naval Amphibious Training Base

Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge

Solomons was a rather isolated boat-building town housing the

University of Maryland 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 M ...

Chesapeake Biological Laboratory The Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) is a marine science laboratory on the Chesapeake Bay in Solomons, Maryland, and it is the oldest state-supported marine laboratory on the East Coast of the U.S. It was founded in 1925 in a small waterma ...

, until 1977 when the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge was built. The bridge leads from just off Solomons Island proper to St. Mary's County and the

Patuxent Naval Air Station Naval Air Station Patuxent River , also known as NAS Pax River, is a United States naval air station located in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Patuxent River. It is home to Headquarters, Naval Air Sys ...

Tourism

The town now welcomes tourists with numerous marinas, seafood restaurants, gift shops, a boardwalk, a sculpture garden, the

Calvert Marine Museum The Calvert Marine Museum is a maritime museum located in Solomons, Maryland. The museum has three main themes: * regional paleontology, * estuarine life of the Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay, * maritime history. Among its exhibits are the ...

where visitors can climb atop a former lighthouse, board harbor cruises, and hear occasional outdoor concerts by famous performers. Solomons also has three major hotels, a

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

family recreation center, and a church retirement home.

St. Peter's Chapel St. Peter's Chapel is an historic Carpenter Gothic-style Episcopal church building located at 14590 Solomon's Island Road, South, in Solomons, Calvert County, Maryland. Built in 1889, it features the steep roof, lancet windows A lancet window ...

is an historic 1889

Carpenter Gothic Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic or Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures ...

-style church that is still in use. The Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center in Solomons is a Smithsonian-affiliated forested sculpture park where creations of

Kenneth Snelson Kenneth Duane Snelson (June 29, 1927 – December 22, 2016) was an American contemporary sculptor and photographer. His sculptural works are composed of flexible and rigid components arranged according to the idea of 'tensegrity'. Snelson prefer ...

George Rickey George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor. Early life and education Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was still a child, his father, an executive with Singer S ...

Arnaldo Pomodoro Arnaldo Pomodoro (born 23 June 1926) is an Italian sculptor. He was born in Morciano, Romagna, and lives and works in Milan. His brother, Giò Pomodoro (1930–2002) was also a sculptor. Pomodoro designed a controversial fiberglass crucifix fo ...

and other major sculptors are on exhibit. Most sculptures are on loan from the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

or the

Hirshhorn Museum The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desi ...

. The site is both a family-friendly place with educational activities for children and a host of world-class professional artwork, including pieces by

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

, and Miró; the three were highlights of the 2008 opening exhibit of the new gallery space, the Arts Building.
In a

traffic circle A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford Eng ...

outside the Arts Building stands a landmark

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

fountain-sculpture made for Annmarie Garden which depicts a

waterman standing in a boat while holding oyster-harvesting tongs. During the warm season, water pumped through concealed ductwork emerges and cascades out of the tongs' jaws and also over a shellfish-sorting riprap on the ''Tongers boat. The fallen water pools around the boat in a map-shaped decorative basin where sometimes visiting children splash their feet. Since 1993, Annmarie Garden has hosted an outdoor national juried arts festival at which typically around 100 traveling artists encamp in display tents for a weekend to sell their wares.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 1,536 people, 689 households, and 378 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 856.1 people per square mile (331.3/km). There were 881 housing units at an average density of 491.0/sq mi (190.0/km). The racial makeup of the CDP was 90.69%

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 ...

, 6.64%

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 ...

, 0.13% Native American, 0.52%

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 ...

, 0.33% from

other races Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...

, and 1.69% from two or more races.

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 0.78% of the population. In 2000, 6.7% of Solomons residents identified as being of

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

heritage. This was the highest percentage of Welsh Americans of any place in Maryland. There were 689 households, out of which 15.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.8% were married couples living together, 4.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 45.1% were non-families. 39.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 24.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.97 and the average family size was 2.56. In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 13.1% under the age of 18, 3.1% from 18 to 24, 21.0% from 25 to 44, 21.2% from 45 to 64, and 41.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 56 years. For every 100 females, there were 80.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 76.8 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $48,532, and the median income for a family was $74,318. Males had a median income of $64,833 versus $34,313 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $33,049. About 2.1% of families and 3.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.0% of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over.

Gallery

Image:Our Lady Star of the Sea Solomons Dec 08.JPG, Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, December 2008 Image:Solomons Island UMC Dec 08.JPG, Solomons United Methodist Church, December 2008 Image:Gov Johnson Bridge Dec 08.JPG, Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge, December 2008 Image:Solomons_maryland_sailboat_dock_pier_peaceful_harbor.jpg, A peaceful pierside scene of calm water, February 2010 Image:Place marker of Solomon Island, Maryland.JPG, A visitors' wayfinding compass-marker on Solomons Island picturing a

boat File:Palmtree solomons.jpg, Mature palm tree in front of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory

References

Bibliography

External links

* * {{authority control Census-designated places in Calvert County, Maryland Census-designated places in Maryland Maryland islands of the Chesapeake Bay Landforms of Calvert County, Maryland Maryland populated places on the Chesapeake Bay