Quarry Lake is a

manmade lake A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controll ...

in the

Pikesville Pikesville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. Pikesville is just northwest of the Baltimore city limits. It is the northwestern suburb closest to Baltimore. The population was 30,764 at the 2010 cens ...

area of

Baltimore County, Maryland Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City of ...

. Originally a

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

quarry, it is now one of the deepest lakes in the state. The lake is surrounded by Quarry Lake at Greenspring, a mixed residential development and commercial development that includes single-family homes, condominiums, shops, and office buildings.

History

The lake itself is a flooded

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envi ...

that dates back to 1877. located off

Greenspring Avenue Greenspring Avenue is a road in Baltimore, Maryland and its northwestern Suburb, suburbs. At one time, Greenspring Avenue was Maryland Route 519 from Maryland Route 128, Worthington Road to Dover Road (Reisterstown), Dover Road, but the road has si ...

, between

Old Court Road Old Court Road is a state- and county-maintained highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Including the adjacent road in Howard County known as Woodstock Road, the highway runs from Maryland Route 99 (MD 99) near Woodstock east to Joppa Road near ...

and Smith Avenue. The quarry was likely originally run by the Boyle family, later transferred to the McMahon family. The McMahon Quarry was purchased by the Arundel Corporation in 1937, and became known as the Greenspring Quarry. The quarry operated to produce crushed stone from a

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

ic phase of the Cockeysville Marble, though other minerals were also found at the site. The Arundel Corporation of Baltimore survives as a subsidiary of

Vulcan Materials Company Vulcan Materials Company () is an American company based in Birmingham, Alabama. It is principally engaged in the production, distribution and sale of construction materials. Vulcan is the largest producer of construction materials, primarily gra ...

. In 1999, an agreement was reached to allow a new mixed-use development to be constructed on the property. Construction began in 2005, and the first businesses opened starting in 2006, which now include medical office space of

LifeBridge Health LifeBridge Health is a nonprofit healthcare corporation that was formed in 1998 and currently operates several medical institutions in and around Baltimore, Maryland. These institutions include Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Grace Medical Center (Ba ...

Walgreens Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...

, and

The Fresh Market The Fresh Market is an American chain of supermarkets based in Greensboro, North Carolina. History The Fresh Market was founded by Ray and Beverly Berry on March 5, 1982, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Berrys' idea was to develop a better gr ...

. The development also features 83 single-family homes and 500 condos. The center of the development features is lake, which is deep, one of the deepest lakes in the state of Maryland. File:Quarry Lake 1956 1VKW000020006.jpg, The quarry in 1956 File:Quarry Lake 1998 N10NAPPW10587118.jpg, The quarry in 1998, a few years before flooding File:Quarry Lake Maryland July 2022.jpg, Oblique view in July 2022

References

{{authority control Reservoirs in Maryland Baltimore County, Maryland landmarks Pikesville, Maryland Bodies of water of Baltimore County, Maryland