History
The Chesapeake Beach Railway was constructed from Washington southeast through Upper Marlboro to the newly constructed resort town of Chesapeake Beach between 1897 and 1900. The railroad followed the path of modern MD 260 from Lyons Creek to Mount Harmony Road on the way to its eastern terminus at the Chesapeake Beach Railway Station on the south side of the mouth of Fishing Creek. The first improved road connection to the resort was built as a gravel road. The road was completed from MD 2 (now MD 765I) at Mount Harmony to about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the beach by 1921. Chesapeake Beach Road was completed to the beach by 1923. Construction on a graveled westward extension of MD 260 to Southern Maryland Boulevard, which was then MD 416, south of Dunkirk was started in 1930 and completed by 1933.
The first major upgrade of MD 260 occurred in 1934 when the highway was relocated to a straighter path, bypassing what is now Horace Ward Road, and paved and widened to 20 feet (6.1 m) from the west end of the relocation at Boyds Turn Road to MD 261 in Chesapeake Beach. The highway's original one-lane timber bridge over the Chesapeake Beach Railway at Paris was replaced with a wider concrete bridge between 1934 and 1936. This bridge was built contemporaneously with the end of passenger service on the Chesapeake Beach Railway in 1935. The remainder of MD 260 from MD 416 to Paris was proposed to be expanded from 16 to 20 feet (4.9 to 6.1 m) in width from MD 416 to Paris as early as 1934 and again in 1940.
The first road to be built along the abandoned Chesapeake Beach Railway was a county highway constructed by the Maryland State Roads Commission in 1946 from Owings to MD 260 at Paris that included a timber bridge over Hall Creek. This segment of highway was reconstructed as a 24-foot (7.3 m) wide road surfaced with bituminous stabilized gravel in 1951. Work on the remainder of the highway from Lyons Creek to Owings began in 1952 and the new bituminous stabilized gravel highway was completed in 1954. The new highway was repaved with bituminous concrete in 1956. The new Chesapeake Beach Road was designated MD 751 by 1955 but was changed to a rerouting of MD 260 to its present course in 1956, at which time Mount Harmony Road was removed from the state highway system. MD 260 was expanded to a four-lane divided highway from Mount Harmony Road east to G Street in Chesapeake Beach in 1960. As part of this project, the highway was relocated from what is now Cox Road on the edge of Chesapeake Beach. MD 260's intersection at MD 4 was replaced with an interchange in 2002 and 2003.
Read more about this topic: Maryland Route 260
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