Jessup, Maryland
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Jessup ( ) 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 ...
and
census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), 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 counte ...
in
Howard Howard is a masculine given name derived from the English surname Howard. ''The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names'' notes that "the use of this surname as a christian name is quite recent and there seems to be no particular reason for ...
and Anne Arundel counties, about southwest of Baltimore,
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. Per the 2020 census, the population was 10,535.


Geography

Jessup is located at (39.138374, −76.774929). According to the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the CDP has a total area of , all land. As of the 2010 census, the center of population for the state of Maryland is located on the grounds of the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup.


History

Jessup is located near the site of the historic Spurrier's Tavern, a farm and tavern located on the post road between Baltimore and Washington (Route One) where
George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
traveled regularly. The location of the town was named Pierceland on early maps, but the post-civil war name more commonly given was Jessup's Cut, or Jessop's Cut, a post village in Howard County on the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the oldest railroads in North America, oldest railroad in the United States and the first steam engine, steam-operated common carrier. Construction of the line began in 1828, and it operated as B&O from 1830 ...
. The name is generally attributed to Jonathan Jessup, a
civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...
who worked on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the hand-dug "cut" though Merrill's Ridge he managed as a project. The crews took over 200,000 tons of clay from the clay hill that blocked the trains in freezing weather. The clay was turned into bricks by some of the prisoners from the Maryland Penitentiary who also worked on the Maryland House of Corrections when it was being built. Some of those inmates were then transferred to the House of Correction and they knew the walls were made from Jessup's Cut, hence "the CUT". The name was shortened to Jessups in 1963. Into the mid 20th century, the town was called "Jessups", then was shortened to "Jessup". Since the mid-19th century, the area has been home to various penal institutions. Inmates today still refer to these jails as "the cut," probably unaware of the origin of the name. The Maryland House of Correction, operated by the Maryland Department of Corrections, included a large onsite farm manned with prison labor to provide food for prisoners onsite and offsite. Prisoner labor was discouraged by job seekers in the 1970s much as it did 100 years earlier during the construction of the B&O at Jessup's cut. The State-run Maryland Food Center occupies the land. The prison closed to inmates in 2007. The prison is referred to several times in the NBC television series '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' and the
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
original series, ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...
''. Even though the maximum security prison is now closed, the town still houses a major minimum security prison, Brockbridge Correctional Facility, for violent offenders who are not deemed a threat to society due to the nature of their crimes. Jessup contains many warehouse delivery facilities. Due to its geographically central location in the state, Jessup is also home to the Maryland Food Center, which includes the Maryland Produce Market and the Maryland Seafood Market. The largest facility was operated by Giant Food, with a facility until September 2012. The company outsourced distribution to C&S Wholesale Grocers, relocating its operations to Pennsylvania. In 2013, Coastal Sunbelt Produce announced plans to relocate its 900-employee facility out of state claiming the facility was unable expand to adjacent empty parcels. Howard County was unable to relocate the facility to the vacant state-run facility, or the vacant 760,000sqft Giant Food facility with an offer to gift state land intended for a transportation hub to the company. County Executive Ken Ulman brokered a deal with Preston Scheffenacker Properties, rezoning the historic Duvall Farm site in Laurel, for light industrial use and issued county financed low-interest loans to relocate the facility out of Jessup. Civil engineer Blake Van Leer put the railroad to use again by creating the first recycle and waste transfer stations on rail to cut emissions. Its official name is Annapolis Junction Recycling & Transfer Station, despite being located in Jessup. This facility sends most material out of state to Virginia. Kingdon Gould's Laurel Sand and Gravel company, which includes Savage Stone, Fairfax Materials, Allegany Aggregates, Laurel Asphalt, and S.W. Barrick & Sons, purchased the 625-acre chase property in Eastern Jessup, North of the historic town of Savage, Maryland. The site is home to the Savage Stone quarry, mining Baltimore
Gabbro Gabbro ( ) is a phaneritic (coarse-grained and magnesium- and iron-rich), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is ch ...
rock for road bed construction. The facility started operations in 2005 after special zoning approval with a 25-year reserve in materials. Ridgley's Run Community Association directors Kingdon Gould and his son provided community approval of the project in exchange for the construction of the Ridgley's Run Community Center. To the north of the quarry, Orson Adams built two nineteenth-century Victorian Manor Houses named Oak Hill on a 235-acre estate that anchored the community. The homes burned down after the
Rouse Company The Rouse Company was a publicly traded shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when General Growth Properties (GGP) purchased the company. It was founded by Hunter Moss and James W. Rouse in 1939. Beginnings: Moss-Rouse Com ...
purchased the land and have been redeveloped into apartments. Resident film maker Wayne Shipley used Jessup as the production location for ''One-Eyed Horse'' (2008) and ''Day of the Gun'' (2013). Portions of '' Cry-Baby'' (1990) and '' Die Hard with a Vengeance'' (1995) were filmed in Jessup, with TA Travel Center standing in for ''Nord des Ligne'' Truck Stop in the latter film.


Neighborhoods

Major neighborhoods of Jessup include: *Jessup, community surrounding Jessup station in
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 ...
. * Guilford, located at the intersection of
US 1 U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway System, United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort ...
and Guilford Road. * Waterloo, located at the intersection of
US 1 U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway System, United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort ...
and Waterloo Road.


Notable people

* Arnold Elzey, a major general in the
Confederate army The Confederate States Army (CSA), also called the Confederate army or the Southern army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fi ...
during the
Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, 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.J ...
, retired to a small farm near Jessup. * DeWanda Wise, an actor, was born in Jessup.


Demographics


2020 census


2000 Census

As of the
census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 7,865 people, 379 households, and 280 families residing in the CDP. The population density was . There were 398 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 67.73%
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 31.28%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 1.03%
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino, 0.33% Asian, 0.27% from other races, 0.22% from two or more races, 0.15% Native American, and 0.03%
Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
. There were 379 households, out of which 29.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.5% were
married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 9.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.1% were non-families. 20.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.68 and the average family size was 3.04. In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 3.2% under the age of 18, 15.9% from 18 to 24, 62.5% from 25 to 44, 16.3% from 45 to 64, and 2.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 499.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 539.7 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $48,000, and the median income for a family was $55,139. Males had a median income of $26,003 versus $24,950 for females. The
per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the CDP was $19,052. About 5.0% 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 ...
, including 7.1% of those under age 18 and 4.7% of those age 65 or over.


Transportation

The Jessup stop on the Camden Line of the MARC Train system provides
commuter rail Commuter rail or suburban rail is a Passenger train, passenger rail service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Central business district, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter town ...
service. The major highways that run through Jessup are
Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...
, U.S. Route 1 and Maryland Route 175. Exit 41 off I-95 provides access via MD 175 east.


Government

The
Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for all List of United States federal prisons, federal prisons ...
operates the Mid-Atlantic Region Office in Jessup and in Anne Arundel County. The Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, built in 1960, is a Maryland State-run maximum security hospital for criminals who are adjudged not guilty by reason of
insanity Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors caused by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to other ...
.


See also

*
List of Howard County properties in the Maryland Historical Trust A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


References


External links

{{authority control Census-designated places in Maryland Census-designated places in Howard County, Maryland Census-designated places in Anne Arundel County, Maryland