History
On the 1612 John Smith map, it was called the Bolus River. It has never been a major path of commerce since it is not navigable further upstream than Elkridge. However, the Patapsco valley was used as the route of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's original main line west constructed from 1829 onwards, and this route remains, though much altered. Many old railroad bridges lie along the valley, most notably the Thomas Viaduct and the ruins of the Patterson Viaduct. Flour mills and a hydropower dam were formerly powered by the river.
The valley is prone to flooding, though at long intervals. The most recent severe flood occurred in 1972 as a result of rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Agnes, in which Ellicott City and the Old Main Line sustained serious damage.
The Patapsco River featured prominently in the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. This is where Francis Scott Key, while aboard a British ship, wrote a poem which would later become the national anthem of the United States, "The Star-Spangled Banner". Today, a red, white, and blue buoy marks the spot where the HMS Tonnant was anchored.
Read more about this topic: Patapsco River
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)