Cumberland, MD Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

The only large town in the far west of Maryland, CUMBERLAND started life as a coal-mining center in the late 1700s. Often confused with Daniel Boone's Cumberland Gap in southwest Virginia, this Cumberland was also an important trans-Appalachian crossing, but its main place in history is as the terminus of the ill-fated C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) Canal , an impressive engineering feat begun in 1813 but not completed until 1850, by which time the railroads had already made it obsolete. The visitor center in the Western Maryland Station Center (Mon–Fri 9am–5pm, Sat & Sun 10am–4pm; tel … more »