Time moves at a different pace in Linthicum. A railroad suburb carved out of rolling farmland outside Baltimore a century ago, the leafy community in northern Anne Arundel County has retained an unhurried, small-town feel even as development, highways and a sprawling airport have crowded in on its borders in the decades since.
On April 25, state and local dignitaries assembled at the old Linthicum train station to celebrate the neighborhood's designation as a National Historic Place.
It was first included in the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, but community leaders decided to hold off on an official celebration until Linthicum marked its centennial this year.
"The historic district enables us to maintain that cohesive turn-of-the-century character," said Beth Nowell, a member of the community's centennial committee and leader of the effort to have the area put on the national register.
The dedication as a National Historic Place recognizes Linthicum's significance as an example of interurban development around railroads at the turn of the 20th century, she said, and reaffirms its communal identity as it faces new development pressures.
Linthicum has long been tied to mass transportation. The community traces its roots to the introduction in 1908 of electric rail service through the area linking Baltimore and Annapolis. That same year, the Linthicum family developed 445 acres of the land they had owned since the early 19th century, creating the community of Linthicum Heights.
During the First World War, the community drew soldiers stationed nearby at what is now Fort Meade. Camp Meade Road was built linking Linthicum and its rail stop with the Army post.
In 1950, the city of Baltimore bought land adjacent to Linthicum and built Friendship Airport, now BWI Marshall Airport, which continues to serve as a major economic engine for the entire region.
Skip Booth, a lifelong resident and honorary mayor of Linthicum, remembers riding his bike right up to the then-small airport, where he would watch planes take off and buy magazines in the terminal.
"That was where I bought my first Rolling Stone magazine," Booth said.
But the airport's growth, along with that of Baltimore and its surroundings, has generated pressure to convert the small suburb into what Booth and other locals call an "aerotropolis." The Beltway circling Baltimore, built after World War II, also brought heavy traffic to the area.
