Howard County, MD
Featured Community Listings
Howard County is located in the central part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 census, the population was 287,085. If you are considering buying or selling a home in Howard county, have one of the Best realtors howard county represent you. If you would like to know what your home is worth anywhere in Maryland, click here and get a free home valuation today.
Howard County is included in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area. However, recent development in the south of the county has led to some realignment towards the Washington, D.C. media and employment markets. The county is home to Columbia, a major planned community of approximately 100,000 founded by developer James Rouse in 1967.
Best realtors howard county
Howard County is frequently cited for its affluence, quality of life, and excellent schools. With an estimated median household income of $120,194 in 2016, Howard County had the second-highest median household income of any U.S. county in 2016.[3] Many of the most affluent communities in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, such as Clarksville, Dayton, Glenelg, Glenwood, and West Friendship, are located along the Route 32 corridor in Howard County. The main population center of Columbia/Ellicott City was named second among Money magazine‘s 2010 survey of “America’s Best Places to Live.”[4]
In 2010, the center of population of Maryland was located in the Howard County town of Jessup.
Etymology
Howard County is named for Governor John Eager Howard
The name of the county honors Colonel John Eager Howard,[6] an officer in the “Maryland Line” of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, commander notably at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina in 1781, among others. He was the fifth governor of Maryland from 1788 to 1791.[7]
History
1860 Martenet’s Map of Howard County, Maryland
The lands of prehistoric Howard County were populated by Native Americans. The Maryland Historical Trust has documented sites along the Patapsco, Patuxent, Middle and Little Patuxent River valleys.[8] In 1652, the Susquehannock tribes signed a peace treaty with Maryland, giving up their provenance over the territory that is now Howard County.[9] In 1800, the mean center of U.S. population as calculated by the US Census Bureau was found in what is now Howard County.[10]
In 1838, Dr. William Watkins of Richland Manor proposed the “Howard District” of Anne Arundel County.[11] After several adjournments, the area of western Anne Arundel County was designated the Howard District in 1839.[12] The district had the same status as a county except that it was not separately represented in the Maryland General Assembly. In 1841, the county built its first courthouse in Ellicott City.[13] At the January 1851 constitutional convention, Thomas Beale Dorsey submitted a petition led by James Sykes. A committee was formed with Dorsey, Bowie, Smith, Harbine and Ricaud. After several postponements, the district was erected officially as Howard County on March 7, 1851.[14]
The plantations of modern Howard County used slave labor as early as 1690. At the time of the Underground Railroad, some Howard County residents assisted slaves who were escaping to freedom. This was particularly risky, as many prominent plantation families were Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War, contributing militiamen to the South to protect local interests.[15] Maryland was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, later abolishing slavery in the update of the Maryland Constitution in November 1864.[16]
On May 1, 1883 Howard County joined Anne Arundel County and Harford County in liquor prohibition. Best realtors howard county
By 1899, Howard County contained 400 miles (640 km) of dirt and 48 miles (77 km) of stone roads, including three paid turnpikes maintained by 118 men. Most traffic consisted of loads delivered to rail crossings.[18] In 1909, County Commissioners Hess, Werner and O’Neil were charged with malfeasance regarding contract bids. Best realtors howard county
In 1918, a deadly flu pandemic swept the county starting with an early outbreak in Camp Meade in adjacent Anne Arundel County.[20][21] The 1930s saw a shift from one-room schoolhouses to centralized schools with bus service. By 1939 wheat harvesting fell to just 18,800 acres (7,600 ha).[22] In 1940, local newspaper owner Paul Griffith Stromberg led a five-county commission to study a superhighway between Baltimore and Washington through Howard County.[23] The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 eventually led to the construction of Interstate 70 across northern Howard County and Interstate 95 across the eastern part of the county.[24] The sparsely populated county hosted population centers in Ellicott City, Elkridge, Savage, North Laurel and Lisbon with W.R. Grace and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab as the largest new employers. Residents elected officials that campaigned to keep the county rural while planners prepared public works to support a quarter million residents by the year 2000. Race relations and desegregation became major issues of the time.[25]
From 1963 to 1966 the Rouse Company bought 14,000 acres (5,700 ha) of land and rezoned it for the Columbia Development. In 1972, the Marriott company proposed to build a regional theme park on Rouse-owned land but was denied zoning. Best realtors howard county
The county has a number of properties on the National Register of Historic Places.[27]
Best realtors howard county
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 253 square miles (660 km2), of which 251 square miles (650 km2) is land and 2.7 square miles (7.0 km2) (1.0%) is water.[28] It is the second-smallest county in Maryland by land area and smallest by total area. Best realtors howard county
Daucus carota (Queen Anne’s Lace) was designated as the official flower of Howard County in 1984.[29]
Howard County is located in the Piedmont Plateau region of Maryland, with rolling hills making up most of the landscape. It is bounded on the north and northeast by the Patapsco River, on the southwest by the Patuxent River, and on the southeast by a land border with Anne Arundel County. Both the Patapsco and Patuxent run largely through publicly accessible parkland along the county borders. The Patuxent border includes the Triadelphia and Rocky Gorge reservoirs.