History
Old Court Road originated as an Indian trail that was repurposed in the late 17th century as a patrol road and defensive perimeter across Baltimore County for rangers based at Fort Garrison to defend English settlements from hostile Indians. In conjunction with the Joppa Road, in the 18th century the path became the cross-county highway to Joppa, the original county seat of Baltimore County, which was located on the Gunpowder River near what is now Joppatowne. The first section of the road built as a modern highway was from Falls Road west to near Park Heights Avenue in Pikesville, which was under construction as a 14-foot (4.3 m) wide macadam road by 1911 and completed by 1915. The macadam road was extended west to Park Heights Avenue in 1923, completing what is today the full length of MD 133.
The MD 125 portion of Old Court Road was paved in macadam through Granite in 1924 and relocated and paved in concrete from Granite to the Patapsco River in 1924 and 1925. With the completion of those sections, Old Court Road featured an all-weather surface from the Patapsco River to Towson on both its state-maintained and county-maintained sections. In 1932 and 1933, three sections of the highway were upgraded: MD 133 was extended west and the existing macadam road resurfaced for 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to U.S. Route 140 (US 140, now MD 140); MD 125 was extended east and resurfaced for 2.1 miles (3.4 km) to its current eastern terminus; and MD 125 was extended west and resurfaced along Woodstock Road to MD 99. In 1956, four years after the highway's bridge over the Patapsco River was redecked, the Howard County portion of MD 125 was transferred to county maintenance. In 2002, a 0.09-mile (0.14 km) section of Woodstock Road immediately to the west of the Patapsco River was returned to state maintenance.
In 1957, a connector road was built from just east of the eastern terminus of MD 133 to Joppa Road at what is now the latter highway's overpass of I-695 near Riderwood. This connector road, which was briefly a state highway, became part of I-83 in 1962. Old Court Road and Ruxton Road were relocated at I-83; previously the easternmost section of Old Court Road met MD 25 north of MD 133's terminus and Ruxton Road, which prior to 1963 was part of MD 134, met MD 25 south of MD 133's terminus. When Ruxton Road's interchange with I-83 was built, Ruxton Road was realigned to end at the same intersection as MD 133. The current north–south section of Old Court Road east of I-83 was built to replace the disconnected segment to the north. Similar to the situation at MD 25, Old Court Road previously met US 140 at staggered intersections and the westernmost portion of MD 133 was part of Sudbrook Lane. In 1967, Old Court Road was relocated to its present alignment between US 140 and Sudbrook Lane. MD 133 was truncated at MD 129 to bring MD 133 to its current length in 1969.
Read more about this topic: Old Court Road
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)