Patuxent Wildlife Research Center - History

History

The land that now comprises the 12,841 acres (51.97 km2) of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center was mostly farmland from the colonial period through at least World War I. Well-known landholders such as the Snowden and Duvall families owned substantial amounts of land during the colonial period and well through the 19th century. The legacy of the Snowden family can still be found in two historic homes of the area, one of which (Snowden Hall) actually stands on Patuxent Refuge property. In addition to these dwellings, there still exists quite a few cemeteries whose headstones bear the inscriptions of both the Snowdens and Duvalls, in addition to lesser-known surnames such as the Woodwards, Donaldsons, and Waters families.

Almost all of the 8,100 acres (33 km2) that makes up what is now called the "North Tract" (the Patuxent River bisects the refuge into the North and Central/South Tracts) were transferred in 1991 from the Defense Department's Fort Meade landholdings. It is here that the history of Patuxent Refuge is most apparent to the everyday visitor. Prior to the Department of Defense's ownership of the land in 1917, many old roads that would eventually be incorporated into use for training exercises by the Army existed. Part of the DOD's Trainfire Road, now known as the Wildlife Loop, once linked the railroad town of Woodwardville with Laurel, Maryland. Long before the area became a densely-wooded haven for wildlife amidst a heavily-populated urban corridor, the old Duvall and Lemons Bridges transported people between Prince Georges and Anne Arundel Counties. The former still exists as a newer bridge rebuilt in the 1940s, whereas only cement posts along either side of the river offer any vestige of what was Lemon's Bridge. Perhaps the most historic old road of all, which utilized Duvall Bridge, was the old Telegraph Road. It once linked Baltimore and Washington, and today it is still possible to see century-old telegraph poles along the road in both the Central and South Tracts.