Maryland Mining Company
Maryland Mining Company was an iron and coal mining company operating out of Eckhart Mines, Maryland of Allegany County, Maryland. The Eckhart mines location up Braddock Run were among the first bituminous coal mines developed in the area, together with a few others along Georges Creek Valley. The Eckhart operation was owned by the Maryland Mining Co. Meanwhile, at Mount Savage, Maryland a little to the northwest, the first pig iron was smelted by the Maryland & New York Coal and Iron Company
Coal mining began in Eckhart when "The Big Vein" was opened in 1820. The coal was originally transported by flatboats placed together on the headwaters of the Potomac North Branch. As part of their operations, the Potomac Wharf Branch was built from Wills Creek, west of Cumberland, by the Maryland Mining Company between 1846 and 1850, as an extension to their Eckhart Branch Railroad.
The Cumberland Coal & Iron Company, chartered in 1850, purchased the Maryland Mining Company's mines and railroad in April 1852, including the village of Eckhart.
With the arrival of the B&O Railroad in Cumberland, Maryland in 1842, local interests began lobbying for the construction of branch lines leading to the coal mines at Eckhart Mines, and the iron furnaces at Mount Savage, Maryland. The B&O didn't want to invest into branches for political as well as financial reasons. Eventually the Maryland & New York Coal & Iron Co. chartered and built its own (Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad with the purpose of connecting with, and hopefully later selling out to, the B&O near the Cumberland Narrows.
The line to the Mt. Savage works was finished and operating in December 1844, while Maryland Mining's Eckhart branch entered service in May 1846. Throughout the following years, the Mt. Savage operation fell on hard times, and the Eckhart coal business has always been the more prosperous of the two. The C&P later became the initial stretch of B&O's main line to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, first via trackage rights and following 1903 by way of lease. Eckhart Jct. was established just west of the Narrows, Mt. Savage Jct. a few miles to the north.
History of the railroad in the area is as follows:
1845 - Mount Savage Coal & Iron Company (later Maryland & New York Coal and Iron Company) completes the Mount Savage Railroad, from Mt. Savage furnaces to Cumberland, with branches.
1846 - Maryland Mining Company completes the Eckhart Railroad, from Eckhart Mines, Maryland to Wills Creek (Eckhart Jct.).
1850 - Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad is chartered.
1850 - Eckhart Railroad completes Potomac Wharf Branch into Cumberland.
1853 - Georges Creek Coal & Iron Company builds the Georges Creek Railroad between Lonaconing, Maryland and Piedmont, West Virginia.
1863 - C&P acquires the Georges Creek Railroad after purchasing the Mt. Savage RR.
1870 - C&P absorbes Eckhart Railroad.
1876 - The Maryland and American Coal Companies start building the Georges Creek & Cumberland RR.
1879 - Pennsylvania Railroad completes PRR of Maryland line between State Line and Cumberland.
1888 - GC&C merges PRR of Maryland.
1907 - Western Maryland Railroad assumes control of the GC&C as part of the Gould empire (merged into WM in 1917).
1939 - GC&C abandoned west of Eckhart Jct.
1953 - C&P merged into the WM.
1982 - State Line Branch abandoned.
These roads were built by the iron and coal companies in the early 1840's, in anticipation of connecting with the B&O Railroad and the C&O Canal, both then under construction to Cumberland. Some of these standard gauge mine roads owned and operated their own equipment, while others were operated with early B&O motive power and rolling stock. By 1870, all of the lines were absorbed into the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad, which was itself absorbed into the Western Maryland system.
References
- Tom Robertson, "Frostburg", Arcadia Publishing 2002, ISBN 0-7385-1422-5
