Appalachian History

Some of America’s most famous entertainers of the 1930s era, because they were African-Americans, were barred from staying in Cumberland, Maryland’s mainstream hotels. Such notable musicians as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, and others often stayed at the Davis Tourist Home while on tour. These stays were often a week at a time when [...]

A GREY HUNTER Cumberland [MD] Evening Times, May 18th & 19th, 1881 “Jack Chadwick lived in the wild country near Negro mountain with his mother and little brother Jesse. He was a great hunter and feared nothing. In one of his excursions he came across an Indian chief, who lived in the break in Will’s [...]

Excerpt from ‘Cumberland, Maryland Through the Eyes of Herman J. Miller,’ (1978) During the 1920’s and early 1930’s, so many arrests and convictions were made by dry agents that the Allegany County Jail could not hold all of the prisoners, so some were housed in the Garrett County Jail at Oakland, Maryland. One bootlegger on [...]

Today realtors tout the Dingle neighborhood west of Cumberland, MD for its charming Craftsman houses of the early 20th century. But this placid upscale neighborhood was a fierce wilderness when Nemacolin, a Delaware chief, and Thomas Cresap, a Maryland frontiersman, first blazed a trail through here in 1749 or 1750. The trail ran between the [...]

Sara Roberta Getty (1880-1973) served as Woman’s Editor for the Cumberland [MD] Daily News from 1924 to 1942. She wrote four books of poetry, including Little songs of every day, (1924) and Maryland Melodies, (1930), the latter dedicated “to the Queen City of the Alleghenies and her warm hearted people who to me have been [...]