Patapsco Valley State Park

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013 Enjoying Patapsco Valley State Park 

 

While gray and drizzly, today was a good one to walk at Patpasco Valley State Park (PVSP).

 

Our first state park has over thirty miles of protected land along both sides of the river, which flows into our city and out to the bay.

 

PVSP today saw joggers, cyclists, folks fishing in waders, picnickers and walkers sharing the river’s beautiful banks.

 

Some like myself appreciated the historic signage which describes the old mills and towns that began our Industrial Revolution here and brought us out of the colonial one crop tobacco economy with the grist mills that led to the port exporting wheat and bringing the city great wealth.

 

The river was our first highway and not surprisingly when railroads came along they paralleled it heading west toward the Ohio Valley. A Baltimorean named Latrobe constructed the Thomas Viaduct there which many thought could not and would not withstand heavy trains winding above on its stone archway. It still stands today and is in constant use by CSX.

 

Walking with the Patapsco below on one side and the trains and tracks above on the other side is a little like going back and forth in history.

 

Going across the water on the Swinging Bridge which sways in the wind while offering wonderful views up and down river is not to be missed! A marker shows the workers who used it to get between their mill and their company town.

 

Another sign recalls the floods that swept away fortunes and took lives, homes and jobs. Left for all to be amazed in the moss by the water is a train car carried there during Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

 

And the post near Elkridge Landing reminds us that here was the first port on the Patapsco predating that of Baltimore Harbor before silt did it in.

 

I learned today that there was a waterworks supplying city and county drinking water at Avalon and that Lost Lake was once its reservoir.

 

Getting all the way up to Bloede Dam took some serious hiking but the power of the water's mist and rush was worth it. Don’t delay your trek there as the days of the dam are numbered.

 

Park information is well presented online at 

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/central/patapsco.asp