Middletown Daily Photo: Welcome Again

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Welcome Again

This welcome banner is at the Town Center Plaza - a fancy name for the strip center with Safeway, CVS, two banks, a pizza restaurant, an ice cream shop, a dentist and a cleaners.

2 comments:

Unknown said...: even more interesting about the name is the fact that it is quite a distance from the center of town...; August 22, 2008 at 6:36 PM
Bernie said...: I don't get why they call is Town CENTER. And there doesn't seem to be any plan to move anything there - the Municipal Center (City Hall) is in fairly new digs in the real center of town.; August 26, 2008 at 9:50 PM

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About Middletown

Middletown, Maryland was founded in 1767 and is said to be named either for its position midway between South Mountain and the Catoctin Mountains or its central location between the larger Maryland cities of Frederick and Hagerstown. A few years earlier, a visiting surveyor and future “Father of our Country” George Washington referred to Middletown Valley as one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen.

The town was incorporated in 1833. After the Civil War battles of South Mountain and Antietam, Middletown churches served as hospitals for both Union and Confederate soldiers.

Today Middletown boasts a delicate balance of old and new. Instead of a Mayor, the town leader is a Burgess. Some of the buildings were built in the 1700s and 1800s. There are large Victorian homes as well as the typical cookie-cutter subdivisions that dot the edge of the Washington DC commuter exurbs.

The only franchise restaurant in town is a Subway; the only Starbucks is inside the Safeway.

If you really want to understand what small-town America feels like, visit Middletown during the Independence Day festivities and fireworks at Middletown Park, the Volunteer Fire Department’s annual mid-July Carnival or the Middletown Heritage Festival held in the fall.