Middle River 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 ...

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland. The county is part of the Central Maryland region of the state. Baltimore County partly surrounds but does not include the independent city ...

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. The population was 33,203 at the 2020 census. A Middle River Train Station first appeared on the 1877 G.M. Hopkins & Co Baltimore County Map and by 1898 had a designated Post Office and modest street grid. The town expanded during the 1930s and 1940s and established the "Aero Acres" housing community which borders the railroad tracks and Martin Blvd. to serve as housing for people working at the Martin Aerospace Company. For this development, the architecture firm of

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill SOM, an initialism of its original name Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer ...

designed gable-roofed Cape Cod houses with dimensions of 24 feet (7.3 m) by 28 feet (8.5 m), featuring large commercial-style windows in their principal rooms. In 1941 a total of 600 homes were built at Aero Acres using this design from Cemento (a cement/asbestos material).

Geography

Middle River is located at (39.333957, −76.440502). 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 Census Designated Place (CDP) has a total area of , of which is land and , or 8.63%, is water.

Demographics

At the 2000 census, there were 23,958 people, 9,425 households, and 6,399 families living in the CDP. The population density was . There were 10,000 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 82.60% White, 13.21% African American, 0.60% Native American, 1.23% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.86% from other races, and 1.47% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.92% of the population. Of the 9,425 households 33.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.0% were married couples living together, 16.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.1% were non-families. 25.7% of households were one person and 9.8% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.51 and the average family size was 2.99. The age distribution was 25.9% under the age of 18, 8.0% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 22.2% from 45 to 64, and 13.1% 65 or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.0 males.

History

Middle River was once known as a "Little Appalachia". Before, during, and after World War II many Appalachian migrants settled in the

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

area, including Middle River. Appalachian people who migrated to Middle River were largely

economic migrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

s who came looking for work.

Schools

Victory Villa Elementary School was built in the 1930s to teach the children of the Martin Aerospace Center's employees. It was rebuilt in 2018. Martin Boulevard Elementary School was built in the 1950s and rebuilt on the same property in the 1990s to accommodate the ever-expanding population in the Middle River Community. Middle River Middle School, originally a junior high school housing seventh through ninth grades, now conforms to the Maryland shift in grades and houses sixth through eighth grades. Students feed into Kenwood High School, located on Stemmers Run Road in

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. Glenmar Elementary School is located across from Middle River Middle School and Hawthorne Elementary borders Essex.

References

External links