Maryland Route 45 - History

History

York Road was first constructed as a wagon road in the early 1740s to connect the new settlement of York with the port of Baltimore. In the 19th century, this road became part of the Baltimore and Yorktown Turnpike. When the Maryland State Roads Commission put together a state road system in 1909, York Road from North Avenue in Baltimore to Parkton was designated one of the original state roads to be improved. The first section of the old turnpike to be resurfaced with a 14-foot (4.3 m) wide macadam surface was from Washington Avenue just north of the center of Towson and the hamlet of Texas south of Cockeysville in 1913. The highway from the contemporary northern city limit of Baltimore near 42nd Street to Washington Avenue just north of the center of Towson was surfaced with bituminous concrete in 1914. York Road from Texas to Glencoe was resurfaced in 1914 and from there to the hamlet of Verona south of Hereford in 1915. The improved macadam road was extended to Parkton by 1919. York Road from Parkton to the Pennsylvania state line was paved in concrete in two sections completed in 1921 and 1923. Greenmount Avenue was reconstructed from 42nd Street to its southern end by 1924. In 1927, York Road and Greenmount Avenue north of North Avenue became part of US 111.

Early improvements to York Road included the construction of new bridges over Western Run and Gunpowder Falls in 1918 and 1924; these bridges remain in use. Other bridges included grade separations at the crossings of the Northern Central Railway at Cockeysville and Parkton built around 1930. US 111 was widened with concrete shoulders in much of Baltimore County in the mid- to late 1920s. York Road and Greenmount Avenue were widened and reconstructed in Baltimore in 1929 and 1930. By 1930, US 111 had a width of 40 feet (12 m) from inside Baltimore to Towson, 20 feet (6.1 m) from Towson to Parkton, and 18 feet (5.5 m) from Parkton to the Pennsylvania state line. By 1934, the Maryland State Roads Commission recommended widening the U.S. Highway to 40 feet (12 m) from Towson to Cockeysville and to 20 feet (6.1 m) from Parkton to the Pennsylvania state line. The latter stretch was widened to 24 feet (7.3 m) in 1946 and 1947.

Further widening of US 111 was not planned because York Road was to be bypassed by a freeway between Baltimore and Harrisburg. Construction on the Baltimore–Harrisburg Expressway got underway in 1948 between Timonium and Hunt Valley. The first portion of the freeway opened from Towson to Belfast Road north of Hunt Valley in December 1955, concurrent with the opening of the portion of the Baltimore Beltway between Falls Road and York Road. US 111 was moved to the freeway when the Baltimore–Harrisburg Expressway was completed to north of Hereford in 1957; MD 45 was assigned to York Road between the Beltway and the northern end of the freeway. A second, disjoint portion of MD 45 was assigned from north of Parkton to the Pennsylvania state line when the Baltimore–Harrisburg Expressway was completed between Parkton and the York area in 1959. When the final section of the US 111 freeway was completed between Hereford and Parkton in 1960, MD 45 was assigned to the stretch of York Road between those communities. US 111 and I-83 were co-signed on the freeway between Towson and Harrisburg until US 111 was decommissioned in 1963; the MD 45 designation was extended south into Baltimore to US 1 at that time.