Garrett County is the westernmost county of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,806, making it the third-least populous county in Maryland. Its county seat is Oakland. The county was named for John Work Garrett (1820–1884), president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Created from Allegany County, Maryland in 1873, it was the last Maryland county to be formed.
Allegany County is located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 68,106. Its county seat is Cumberland. The name Allegany may come from a local Lenape word, welhik hane or oolikhanna, which means 'best flowing river of the hills' or 'beautiful stream'. A number of counties and a river in the Appalachian region of the U.S. are named Allegany, Allegheny, or Alleghany. Allegany County is part of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is a part of the Western Maryland "panhandle".
Interstate 68 (I-68) is a 112.9-mile (181.7 km) Interstate Highway in the US states of West Virginia and Maryland, connecting I-79 in Morgantown, West Virginia, to I-70 in Hancock, Maryland. I-68 is also Corridor E of the Appalachian Development Highway System. From 1965 until the freeway's construction was completed in 1991, it was designated as U.S. Route 48 (US 48). In Maryland, the highway is known as the National Freeway, an homage to the historic National Road, which I-68 parallels between Keysers Ridge and Hancock. The freeway mainly spans rural areas and crosses numerous mountain ridges along its route. A road cut at Sideling Hill exposed geological features of the mountain and has become a tourist attraction.
The Allegheny Mountain Range, informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less developed eras. The Allegheny Mountains have a northeast–southwest orientation, running for about 400 miles (640 km) from north-central Pennsylvania, southward through western Maryland and eastern West Virginia.
The Eastern Continental Divide, Eastern Divide or Appalachian Divide is a hydrographic divide in eastern North America that separates the easterly Atlantic Seaboard watershed from the westerly Gulf of Mexico watershed. The divide nearly spans the United States from south of Lake Ontario through the Florida peninsula, and consists of raised terrain including the Appalachian Mountains to the north, the southern Piedmont Plateau and lowland ridges in the Atlantic Coastal Plain to the south. Water including rainfall and snowfall, lakes, streams and rivers on the eastern/southern side of the divide drains to the Atlantic Ocean; water on the western/northern side of the divide drains to the Gulf of Mexico. The ECD is one of six continental hydrographic divides of North America which define several drainage basins, each of which drains to a particular body of water.
Backbone Mountain is a ridge of the Allegheny Mountains of the central Appalachian Mountain Range. It is situated in the U.S. states of West Virginia and Maryland and forms a portion of the Eastern Continental Divide. In the state of Maryland, Backbone Mountain reaches an elevation of 3,360 feet or 1,024 metres, making it Maryland's highest point.
U.S. Route 522 is a spur route of US 22 in the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The U.S. Highway travels in a north-south direction, and runs 308.59 miles (496.63 km) from US 60 near Powhatan, Virginia, to its northern terminus at US 11 and US 15 near Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. US 522 serves many small cities and towns in the Piedmont, Blue Ridge Mountains, and northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The highway serves the Virginia communities of Goochland, Mineral, Culpeper, the town of Washington, and Front Royal and the independent city of Winchester. US 522 then follows the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians north and then east through the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) stretch of Western Maryland, and South Central Pennsylvania to its terminus in the Susquehanna Valley. The highway serves Berkeley Springs, West Virginia; Hancock, Maryland; and the Pennsylvania communities of McConnellsburg, Mount Union, Lewistown, and Middleburg.
U.S. Route 340 is a spur route of US 40, and runs from Greenville, Virginia to Frederick, Maryland. In Virginia, it runs north–south, parallel and east of US 11, from US 11 north of Greenville via Waynesboro, Grottoes, Elkton, Luray, Front Royal, and Berryville to the West Virginia state line. A short separate piece crosses northern Loudoun County on its way from West Virginia to Maryland.
The Allegheny Front is the major southeast- or east-facing escarpment in the Allegheny Mountains in southern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern West Virginia, and western Virginia, USA. The Allegheny Front forms the boundary between the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians to its east and the Appalachian Plateau to its west. The Front is closely associated with the Appalachian Mountains' Eastern Continental Divide, which in this area divides the waters of the Ohio/Mississippi river system, flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, from rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay and from there into the Atlantic Ocean.
Western Maryland, also known as the Maryland Panhandle, is the portion of the U.S. state of Maryland that typically consists of Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties. The region is bounded by Preston County, West Virginia to the west, the Mason-Dixon line (Pennsylvania) to the north, and the Potomac River to the south. At one point, at the town of Hancock, the northern and southern boundaries are separated by just 1.8 miles - the narrowest stretch in the state.
Sideling Hill is a long, steep, narrow mountain ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains, located in Washington County in western Maryland and adjacent West Virginia and Pennsylvania, USA. The highest point on the ridge is Fisher Point, at 2,310 feet (700 m) in Fulton County, Pennsylvania.
Maryland Route 135 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as Maryland Highway, the state highway runs 29.00 miles (46.67 km) from U.S. Route 219 in Oakland in Garrett County east to US 220 in McCoole in Allegany County. MD 135 is the main link between the towns of Oakland, Mountain Lake Park, Loch Lynn Heights, and Deer Park on the Appalachian Plateau and the communities of Bloomington, Luke, Westernport, and McCoole in the upper valley of the North Branch Potomac River. These groups of towns are separated by Backbone Mountain.
Wills Mountain is a quartzite-capped ridge in the Ridge and Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania and Maryland, United States, extending from near Bedford, Pennsylvania, to near Cumberland, Maryland. It is the northernmost of several mountain ridges included within the Wills Mountain Anticline.
U.S. Route 40 in the U.S. state of Maryland runs from Garrett County in Western Maryland to Cecil County in the state's northeastern corner. With a total length of 221 miles (356 km), it is the longest numbered highway in Maryland. Almost half of the road overlaps or parallels with Interstate 68 (I-68) or I-70, while the old alignment is generally known as US 40 Alternate, US 40 Scenic, or Maryland Route 144. West of Baltimore, in the Piedmont and Appalachian Mountains / Blue Ridge region of the Western Maryland panhandle of the small state, the portions where it does not overlap an Interstate highway are mostly two-lane roads. The portion northeast of Baltimore going toward Wilmington in northern Delaware and Philadelphia in southeastern Pennsylvania is a four-lane divided highway, known as the Pulaski Highway. This section crosses the Susquehanna River at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay on the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge.
The Silurian Tuscarora Formation — also known as Tuscarora Sandstone or Tuscarora Quartzite — is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia, USA.
Maryland Route 615 (MD 615) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The state highway runs 4.35 miles (7.00 km) from Interstate 70 (I-70) and U.S. Route 40 (US 40) east of Hancock north to the Pennsylvania state line, where the highway continues as State Route 2001 (SR 2001) in Fulton County. MD 615 has two sections, an east–west section that closely parallels I-70 and US 40 and a north–south highway that follows Heavenly Acres Ridge. The ridge road was constructed as MD 615 in the mid-1930s. The east–west segment is part of the original alignment of US 40 constructed in the mid-1910s. After I-70 was constructed east of Hancock in the early 1960s, MD 615 was extended to its current length parallel to the new freeway.
U.S. Route 220 is a part of the U.S. Highway System that runs from Rockingham, North Carolina to Waverly, New York. In Maryland, the federal highway runs 27.30 miles (43.94 km) from the West Virginia state line at the North Branch Potomac River in McCoole north to the Pennsylvania state line in Dickens. Known as McMullen Highway for much of its length in Maryland, US 220 is the primary north–south route in central Allegany County, connecting Cumberland with its southern suburbs and Keyser, West Virginia to the south and Bedford, Pennsylvania to the north. The federal highway is part of the National Highway System between the West Virginia state line and Maryland Route 53 in Cresaptown and between Interstate 68 (I-68), with which it is concurrent through Cumberland, and the Pennsylvania state line.
U.S. Route 40 Alternate is the U.S. Highway designation for a former segment of U.S. Route 40 (US 40) through Garrett and Allegany counties in Maryland. The highway begins at US 40 near exit 14 on Interstate 68 (I-68) and runs 31.80 miles (51.18 km) eastward to Cumberland, where it ends at exit 44 on I-68. Alt US 40 is maintained by the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDSHA).
Savage River State Forest is located in the north and northeastern part of Garrett County, in the U.S. state of Maryland. The state forest has many waterways, including Savage River Reservoir, which was built in 1952 by the U.S. Army. The dam was built as an emergency water supply for Washington, D.C. Savage River State Forest is known for its hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking trails.
U.S. Route 40 Scenic (US 40 Scenic) is a scenic route of US 40 in the U.S. state of Maryland. US 40 Scenic, which is known for most of its route as National Pike, is the old alignment of US 40 over Town Hill in eastern Allegany County and Sideling Hill in far western Washington County. The highway was originally constructed as part of a turnpike connecting Baltimore with the eastern end of the National Road at Cumberland in the early 19th century. The highway was paved as a modern road in the mid-1910s and designated US 40 in the late 1920s. US 40 was relocated over Sideling Hill in the early 1950s and over Town Hill in the mid-1960s. The US 40 Scenic designation was first applied to the old highway over Town Hill in 1965. Following the completion of Interstate 68 (I-68) at Sideling Hill, US 40 Scenic was extended east along old US 40's crossing of the mountain in the late 1980s. US 40 Scenic is the only scenic route in the U.S. Highway System; formerly, there was a second, US 412 Scenic in Oklahoma, but this has since been redesignated to a more conventional "Alternate" route.
