Oella

There's a lot of art at Mill River Gallery in Oella these days -- three shows -- and a lot of variety as well."The Naked Truth" has Virginia artist Edward Knippers' paintings concentrating on the Bible and especially the life of Christ."

An article in the Feb. 22, 1913, edition of The Argus the return of an unwanted visitor. The dog poisoner who has been causing considerable alarm among the owners of valuable canines in Catonsville for some time is again at work. The pretty collie dog of Patrolman August Peters , living on Mellor avenue, was found Thursday morning the victim of poison in her master's yard. The dog was considered the prettiest of its kind in this part of Baltimore county. ***** After keeping their wedding a secret for eight months, Miss Ethel Dykes , of Oella, daughter of James Dykes, and Benjamin Peters , eldest son of Patrolman August Peters , announced to their friends several days ago their wedding which took place in Wilmington, Del., on June 19 last.

The historic community of Oella remains little-known to many, if not most, Howard County residents. Yet Howard Countians owe the people of this small community in neighboring Baltimore County, where derelict houses are being adapted to modern uses, a note of thanks. Oella representatives have voted in favor of a plan to build a parking lot across the river from Ellicott City to help that thriving tourist town alleviate its long-standing, mind-numbing parking crunch in the old mill town's business district.

While on the winding road in the Patapsco River Valley, I thought it had been 30 years since I last visited Oella, the mill village tucked deep into the hills between Catonsville and Ellicott City's Main Street. On a fall day, the rocky terrain, steep hillsides and leaf colors suggested that Oella might be in Vermont or West Virginia. Then I turned a bend and a resplendently restored Oella Mill appeared. It was one of those astounding moments, as if you hadn't been to Baltimore's harbor for 40 years and returned today.

Wedged between Catonsville and Ellicott City, Oella is no more than a sliver on a state map. About 3,500 people live in the hilly town on the southwestern edge of Baltimore County. But that number should grow significantly at the end of the year, when a slew of new apartments and some renovated stone rowhouses hit the market. A historic mill town, Oella is home to Washington Quality Foods, Maryland's only remaining commercial mill. The town has a strong sense of community and history, which is deepened by institutions such as the Country Corner Store and the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum.

After more than two hours of discussion, Oella residents voted last night to postpone deciding whether the town should be included in the boundaries of the controversial Patapsco Heritage Greenway.They also voted to set up a meeting with John Slater, chairman of the Greenway Committee, to get more information about the project.About 130 people attended the meeting at the Westchester Community Center in Oella.The next meeting of the Greater Oella Community Association has not been scheduled.

It's billed as "The World's Smallest Real Estate Office," a converted outhouse in the historic Baltimore County mill town of Oella that will dispense information for Charles L. Wagandt's Oella Co."It's a very commodious single-seater," joked Mr. Wagandt, president of the company, which sells homes in the old mill village for $80,000 to $500,000.Yesterday, he presided over a ribbon-cutting in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Oella's restoration.While an outhouse-office might be a bizarre gimmick elsewhere, it's an apt image in the case of Oella, a 19th-century textile mill town across the Patapsco River from Ellicott City that only got indoor plumbing in 1984.

A grand opening for an outhouse?That's what the residents of Oella staged this week to show off the newest and smallest, restoration project in this former mill town in western Baltimore County.Located near the intersection of Oella Avenue and Logtown Road, the wood frame building with the tilted metal roof is no ordinary outhouse. It's a deluxe "single-seater," used for many years by a weaver named William Moore, his wife Mabel, and their four children.It's also a high-tech outhouse, painstakingly restored to its original appearance but equipped with modern amenities such as a cellular phone.

Benjamin Banneker was one of early America's authentic geniuses. In 1761, for example, his extraordinary mechanical inventiveness enabled him to build what was probably the first clock made in America -- a wooden "striking" clock so accurate that it kept perfect time for more than 20 years.Banneker's skill at mathematics and astronomy also allowed him to predict the solar eclipse of 1789 and play an important part in the six-man surveying team that laid out the blueprint for the District of Columbia.

A woman was found dead in a wooded area along Frederick Road in Oella on Sunday morning, Baltimore County police said. An autopsy by the medical examiner identified the woman as Janell Earlita Balogun, 33, of Middle River, and her death has been ruled a homicide, though she displayed no visible signs of trauma, police said. Police have no suspects yet but are asking anyone who may have observed suspicious behavior in the area Saturday night or early Sunday morning to contact the Baltimore County Police Department at 410-307-2020 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-756-2587.

Robert F. "Hop" Crooks, a retired Social Security Administration computer programmer, died Monday of complications from a massive epileptic seizure at Marshall Medical Center in Placerville, Calif. The longtime Oella and Catonsville resident was 65. Born in Baltimore and raised in Arbutus, Mr. Crooks was a 1964 graduate of Catonsville High School, where he had been an indoor and outdoor track star. After graduating from high school, he attended what as then Catonsville Community College.

A woman was found dead in a wooded area along Frederick Road in Oella on Sunday morning, Baltimore County police said. An autopsy by the medical examiner identified the woman as Janell Earlita Balogun, 33, of Middle River, and her death has been ruled a homicide, though she displayed no visible signs of trauma, police said. Police have no suspects yet but are asking anyone who may have observed suspicious behavior in the area Saturday night or early Sunday morning to contact the Baltimore County Police Department at 410-307-2020 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-756-2587.

Kevin Rector was quite astute in bringing up the moratorium on new residential rehabilitation program beds that has been in place since 2000 ("County's mentally ill face chronic housing shortage," Catonsville Times and Arbutus Times , Oct. 12). There was a fairly vibrant affordable housing development effort going on before the moratorium that was moving toward filling the need of those hospitalized or in danger of being hospitalized because of psychiatric disorders.

Charles Wagandt is waiting patiently. When he stepped up nearly 40 years ago to help rescue a town whose very existence was being threatened, recession certainly wasn't on his mind. But now, the nation's sluggish economy is his primary foe as he waits for the downturn to lift so he can finally complete his promise to Oella. For his decades-long efforts to breathe new life into the historic village that dates to 1808, Wagandt was named one of four 2011 Preservationists of the Year last week by Preservation Howard County.

An article in the May 27, 1911, edition of The Argus reported on the first of what would be a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the ordination of James Cardinal Gibbons, one of the most famous and accomplished American religious leaders. In 1886, Cardinal Gibbons, for whom the now-closed all-boys Catholic high school was named, became only the second American named a cardinal.. Cardinal Gibbons was given his first college reception in honor of the approaching jubilee celebration Friday afternoon of last week at St. Charles' College, Cloud Cap, on the Maiden Choice road, near Catonsville.

Four years ago, a neglected mansion sat high on a hill in Oella and was known throughout the neighborhood as the eyesore at the end of the Trolley Tour. But when the house went on the market, Jeanne and Sean St. Martin, who lived right down the street from the wreck, were determined to buy it, restore it and live there for life. In 2006, the couple paid $585,000 for the three-story, historic house that had served in the 1920s as a hotel and retreat for the wealthy called Rock Springs.

More than 100 residents of the quaint and sleepy Patapsco riverside village of Oella jammed into a nearby school lunchroom last night to hear details of a proposal to transform the old Oella Mill into 175 apartments and to protest the dangers they see from it. The developer told them the apartments will turn Oella into an upscale community, raising the values of the mill and existing homes in the Baltimore County neighborhood across the river from Ellicott...

Baltimore area residents have pledged to help a homeless Oella man who wants to barter yard work for a county-owned prefabricated home that he can't afford to have moved to his property.More than a dozen callers have offered money, household goods and other assistance in moving the house from Banneker Park in the rural, southwestern Baltimore County community to Delroy Matthews' property a quarter-mile down Oella Avenue."I am really, truly, looking up," said Mr. Matthews, a 42-year-old recovering alcoholic who has been living out of a 1984 Datsun parked on his lot for nearly five years since his grandmother's house burned down in 1989.

In 2002, Lisa and Thomas Baum got engaged on a craggy mound of land overlooking the Patapsco River. Today, the couple, three grown boys, a baby son and a golden retriever named Jasmine live together on that craggy mound in the house the couple designed together and called "River Knoll." The name was chosen in honor of two commitments - Lisa and Tom to each other and to the home they treasure. Thomas Baum, a 45-year-old architect and president of Bozzuto Homes, bought the 1 3/4 acres in the historic mill town of Oella in southwestern Baltimore County.

Total creative freedom is a luxury that Derek Bellomo never took for granted - not the day he purchased a piece of land in southwest Baltimore County's historic Oella and not even when his dream was realized. A burnt-out house with the original fieldstone foundation wedged into a rugged hillside was all that remained on the 30-foot-by-140-foot property for which he paid $80,000 in March 2007. (Construction, design and furnishings would easily total four times that amount, according to Bellomo.