Posted on 11/25/2015 8:03:13 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
HANCOCK — The Sideling Hill Welcome Center is now more than just the most scenic set of fair-weather restrooms in Western Maryland after Lt. Gov. Boyd K. Rutherford and a host of elected officials on Friday reopened the facility, which has been closed for the last six years.
Perched on the east side of Sideling Hill near Hancock, where a massive cut in the mountain rock allows Interstate 68 to pass through, the center was closed in 2009, in a move by former Gov. Martin O'Malley that did not sit well with many area residents.
"It was done for political reasons," Wayne Keefer, president of the Hancock Chamber of Commerce, told the attendees who jammed the center's salesroom shoulder-to-shoulder for the ribbon cutting.
Although the center was closed for six years, Rutherford said it took just eight weeks for the Maryland State Highway Administration and Department of Commerce to get it ready for business.
People in Western Maryland sometimes felt the region was being ignored by Gov. Larry Hogan's predecessor, Keefer said, but the travel industry is important to all parts of the state.
Thirty-eight million people visited Maryland in 2014, a 6 percent increase over the previous year, Rutherford said. They spent $15.4 billion and generated $2.1 billion in state and local taxes, including millions of tax dollars for Western Maryland, he said.
The center would have cost "peanuts in the budget to keep it open over" the past six years, state Sen. George C. Edwards, R-Allegany, Garrett, Washington, said in his remarks.
He also noted that the center's parking lot was full, and "you need to add parking spaces already."
Keefer said that transportation has been vital to Hancock since the days when it was known as North Bend Settlement.
The National Road, now called U.S. 40, along with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland railroads, Interstates 68 and 70, are among the arteries that have allowed businesses to be established and prosper in the Hancock area, he said.
The ceremony also attracted state delegates and mayors, as well as county commissioners from Washington, Allegany and Garrett counties.
Allegany County Commissioner William R. Valentine called the welcome center the gateway to "Mountain Maryland."
"This is a great place to stop and commune with nature. To find out about the opportunities in Western Maryland," Hancock Mayor Daniel Murphy said before the ceremony.
"This is a big piece for tourism and will generate dollars in all the communities along the way .... It's good for Hancock. It's good for Washington County. It's good for our friends in Allegany and Garrett counties."
When the center closed, even the restrooms were locked up, although they were reopened during fair-weather months after about a year, Murphy said.
Murphy noted that historical, natural and geological exhibits once housed in the center were preserved by the town and are on display in the Hancock Visitors Center on Main Street.
Beyond some beautiful mountain vistas, the most distinctive feature of the center is the elevated walkway that takes pedestrians across the west and eastbound lanes of I-68.
The welcome center will be open Thursday through Monday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., while the rest area is open 24 hours a day from May to December, according to a news release from Rutherford's office.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
The cut there shows an amazingly folded sedimentary bed from around the time the Appalachian Mountains were formed. This is the beginning of the coal area of West Virginia. Anyone traveling there should stop and take a look, especially if you have kids.
” Prisons and pot farms. “
And NOI scum, converted in those prisons.
Those Amish biker gangs sure do get around.
The maggots get turned loose from the prisons and never leave.
Same thing as Hagerstown.
Part of why I go out with nasty ass ‘racist’ Dobes tagging along.
Uh, that’s just me going to the ABATE party in June.
;D
I-81 is the BEST way to visit Maryland. :-)
The National Road was established between Cumberland Maryland and Vandalia Illinois. It was the first national interstate hiway. It was lauded by business and condemned by constitutionalists. The establishment led to the arguments and legal wrangling and compromise and laws that allow the states to own but the Federal government to establish routes and specifications.
Today, many take the route beginning in downtown Baltimore as being the road. The section between Baltimore and Cumberland was in existence when the road was established west ward. We took the trip in 2013 and drove the whole route west to Vandalia Illinois. It is one of several historic trails we have traveled.My wife's great great grand father and great great great grand mother established and ran a tavern/inn in Union Town Pennsylvania to serve the travelers on the road.
Ping for my peculiar interest in western MD, Sideling Hill being a landmark along the way.
I still remember using old 40 around the “Colt turn” on the south end of the mountain. Huge change going to this cut.
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