Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

Odenton
Odenton’s history is intertwined with Camp Meade’s
founding and the activities of Army personnel during
WWI. Located two miles east of the cantonment,
Odenton was established in the early 1870s where
the present Amtrak line crossed an east-west railroad.
In 1908, a third railroad was built through the town,
making Odenton an even more important junction.
Odenton’s railroads played a pivotal role in determining
Camp Meade’s location, building the cantonment, and
moving people and materials. After new recruits arrived,
Odenton’s businesses and social organizations helped to
fill their free time and maintain morale. Army personnel
did their banking at Odenton’s newly constructed Citizens
State Bank. Soldiers and officers joined the Masons, and
some enjoyed rest and recreation at Odenton’s Salvation
Army hut or in Epiphany Chapel and Church House.
Today, Odenton’s WWI bank, chapel, and Masonic Hall
are preserved in the town’s Historic District. The chapel
and bank are listed on the National Register of Historic
Places.
When the United States entered WWI, the Washington,
Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railroad, which had a
station, switch tower, and car repair shop in Odenton,
persuaded the Army to locate its mid-Atlantic training
cantonment two miles west of the town. Unsurpassed
rail service was a major incentive; the camp would be
served by the WB&A and Pennsylvania Railroad on the
east side, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on the
west side. The Terminal Real Estate Company, a WB&A
subsidiary, leased tracts of land from farmers and leased
the combined parcel to the government.
The Electric Railway Journal described the frenzy of
activity that followed on the country railroad running
through the new cantonment:
Active construction at Camp Meade did not begin until
July 1, 1917 and by Sept. 2, 8,500 carloads of material
had been hauled into camp, besides the material required
to change the original single-track 66-pound rail along
the Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis Railway to a
double track laid with 85-pound rails. The Railroad not
only supplied all the passenger transportation but it also
WORLD WAR I YEARS
By Roger White
furnished all of the electric energy for lighting and power
purposes at Camp Meade.
Contractors who erected wooden buildings in Camp
Meade kept telegrapher Leonard Jones busy sending and
receiving messages in the Pennsylvania Railroad switch
tower in Odenton. They paid cash for telegrams, and each
day Jones carried home a sack of money. He was anxious
about holding so much cash in his house, but he had to
keep it until a special train stopped at Odenton to pick it
up.
The Citizens State Bank, located in Baltimore, built
its Odenton branch in 1917. The town’s first bank kept
accounts for civilians and Army personnel at Camp
Meade and provided safe storage for their valuables. The
small building’s dignified architectural style–rusticated
cast concrete blocks and metal bars on the windows–
imitated large, well-established city banks.
There was no USO during WWI, but other social
service organizations helped to maintain soldiers’ morale.
In 1917, the Salvation Army erected a one-story hut on
Odenton Road near Odenton’s Pennsylvania Railroad
station, and in 1918, an adjacent, two-story hostel for
visiting families of soldiers. Activities at the hut made
for a vivid account in The War Cry, the Salvation Army’s
magazine:
"You will go a pretty long way today to get a
dinner such as that served in The Salvation Army
hut at Odenton, Maryland Even the hardest working
man from the Government forces at the camp, who
comes a long way at meal hours to take advantage
of the home cooking, need not ask for “a second
helping.” … A few weeks ago Mrs. Boucher and her
assistants… served a troop train which stopped in
the rear of our hut, and the boys just “loaded up,” as
they said, before they left for “somewhere.”
Epiphany Chapel and Church House, built in the same
block in 1918, provided worship services and social
activities for soldiers. There was a room for resting,
reading, music, and games, and upstairs, guest rooms for
visiting families of soldiers.
Members of the Masons had formed a fraternal lodge
in Odenton in 1908 and constructed a building in 1912.
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