Aberdeen Maryland history

Although the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) was the first railroad in Maryland, it had concentrated its efforts southward from Baltimore to Ellicott City in 1830. It was the tiny Baltimore and Port Deposit, incorporated in 1831, that built the first tracks through the Village of Aberdeen.

In the winter of 1851-52, the ice was so thick that tracks were laid upon it between Jan.

The late Harford State Senator William S. James recalled that his grandfather, Harry James, worked on the bridge in 1866 after returning from the Union Army.

20, 1917, and immediately began building testing facilities.

Beginning in January 1918, the new proving ground at Aberdeen would proof-test field artillery weapons, ammunition, trench mortars, air defense guns and railway artillery.

When the war ended in 1945, APG again reverted to its peacetime role of research and development.

The continued dependence on science and technology to help produce better weapons led to the establishment in 1952 of the Human Engineering Laboratory.

A significant change was made on July 1, 1971, when Edgewood Arsenal, the former chemical center and current chemical research and engineering center for the United States Army, was merged into APG. From this point on, APG was the common identifier for both areas.

In 1992, the Laboratory Command at Adelphi, Maryland was re-designated Army Research Laboratory, known as ARL. BRL and HEL, both located at APG, were renamed and transferred to its control.

In 1994, the mission for storage of chemical agent and munitions at APG was transferred from TECOM to the Chemical Biological Defense Command, a new commissary was completed, the 389th Army Band (AMC’s Own) was assigned to APG, and the Officer’s Club (Bldg.

The first of these new buildings became operational in 2010.