Bristol is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Anne Arundel County Anne Arundel County (; ), also notated as AA or A.A. County, is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 588,261, an increase of just under 10% since 2010. Its county seat is Annapolis, wh ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

, United States. Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary (a stop on the Patuxent Water Trail) and the colonial town of Pig Point (alternately referred to as Bristol Landing and Leon at times) are on the

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 northeas ...

waterfront portion of Bristol. Pig Point saw

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

action and was the county's largest steamboat port on the Patuxent in the mid-19th century. Pig Point is a very significant Native American Early Archaic Period archaeological site. The Chesapeake Beach Railway was completed in 1899 through the southern part of Bristol or "Pindell"; ruins of the Pindell Station and its general store remain. The James Owens Farm, listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, and the southern terminus of the Stephanie Roper Highway portion of

Maryland Route 4 Maryland Route 4 (MD 4) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The highway runs from Maryland Route 5, MD 5 in Leonardtown, Maryland, Leonardtown north to Southern Avenue (Washington, D.C.), Southern Avenue in Suitland, Maryland, S ...

are also located in Bristol. In the mid-twentieth century, the segregated Bristol Elementary School was located in the northern part of town, three-quarter mile southeast of Waysons Corner and a half mile south of the crossroad village of Drury. The school in 1953 published a history of Bristol (largely reprinting a 1927 Bristol town history from the Annapolis ''Capital'' newspaper). The following year it was enlarged and renovated, growing to 200 students (and four teachers and a heating and rodent problem) by 1969 after the county was ordered to desegregate schools in 1966.

References

Unincorporated communities in Anne Arundel County, Maryland Unincorporated communities in Maryland {{AnneArundelCountyMD-geo-stub