ellicott city, md, usa
Ellicott City is just outside Baltimore County, and is known for day-trippers and wealthy commuters. It's pretty cute.
It was founded in 1772 and is full of incredible stone buldings in the downtown area, which is in a valley and has had several disastrous floods in the last two decades.
It's also not incorporated, which kind of blows my mind. There's no mayor in the county seat (with 76k residents!) of one of America's richest counties.
Oddly, from 1867 to 1935, Ellicott City was a city โ until a kerfuffle over the burden of saloon taxes lost during Prohibition being placed on residents led to the dissolution of the city charter. (source)
It also has the oldest surviving railroad station in the country, the B&O Ellicott City Station, which is a free museum with a neat restored telegraph room:
And an insane model trail display and theatre we will come back to:
I have questions about the elephant to the right of this model of the Viaduct Hotel.
The caboose! We climbed up into the little booths up top and ate chocolate from the big chocolate shop on the corner, which was actually incredible - I usually can't stand tourist town sweet shops.
There was a three story business that seemed to specialize in Christmas villages, and it also had a 3x4x10 FOOT Halloween display I struggled to document.
Anyways: pleasant walking, lots of cute shit, many plaques, will visit again