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Maryland Mining Company


The Maryland Mining Company is a historic coal mining, iron producer and railroad company that operated in Allegany County, Maryland.

The company was based in Eckhart Mines, Maryland; the location in Braddock Run was among the first bituminous coal mines developed in the Georges Creek Valley.

This region saw significant industrialization, with the first pig iron to be smelted at Mount Savage, Maryland to the northwest by the Maryland and New York Coal and Iron Company. Coal mining began in Eckhart Mines after "The Big Vein" was opened in 1820. The coal was originally transported by flatboats placed together on the headwaters of the North Branch Potomac River. As part of its operations, the company built the Potomac Wharf Branch rail line from Wills Creek, west of Cumberland, between 1846 and 1850, as an extension to its Eckhart Branch Railroad.

The Cumberland Coal & Iron Company, chartered in 1850, purchased the Maryland Mining Company's mines and railroad in April 1852, including the village of Eckhart.

With the arrival of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in Cumberland, Maryland in 1842, local interests began lobbying for the construction of branch lines leading to the coal mines at Eckhart Mines, and the iron furnaces at Mount Savage, Maryland. The B&O didn't want to invest into branches for political as well as financial reasons. Eventually the Maryland & New York Coal & Iron Co. chartered and built its own Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad with the purpose of connecting with, and hopefully later selling out to, the B&O near the Cumberland Narrows.


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