Although this photo doesn’t do the view justice, it does show the railroad tracks (if you squint, in the lower right foreground) that made the portmanteau village of Pen Mar possible. Now a virtual ghost town straddling the Pennsylvania and Maryland border and adjacent to the Appalachian Trail, Pen Mar got its start in 1877 when wealthy businessman and owner of the Western Maryland Railroad — Colonel John Mifflin Hood — decided to build a resort and theme park to draw more people from Baltimore to his trains. And it worked: the resort and theme park were extremely popular, attended by thousands — until the Great Depression hit. The trains, resort, and town never recovered and today Pen Mar is a very small community, although this Park — now a picnic area — is a legacy of days gone by, with a spectacular view.
