A history of Bowie,
since 1882
Postcards, papers and photographs of Bowie from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The city of Bowie owes its existence to the railway. In 1853, Colonel William Duckett Bowie obtained a charter from the Maryland legislature to construct a rail line into Southern Maryland. In 1869, the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Company began the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to Southern Maryland, terminating in Pope's Creek. The area had already been dotted with small farms and large tobacco plantations in an economy based on agriculture and slavery. In 1870, Ben Plumb, a land speculator and developer, sold building lots around the railroad junction and named the settlement Huntington City. By 1872, the line was completed, together with a "spur" to Washington, D.C., and the entire line through Southern Maryland was completed in 1873.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Bowie’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
2 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewBowie Racetrack opens it's [i.e.,…, 1928: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Bowie, decade by decade
CommonsEXCAVATION OF EAST (FRONT) BASEMENT WELL AND DRAINAGE SYSTE…1933
CommonsGENERAL INTERIOR VIEW LOOKING EAST TOWARDS GALLERY AND FRON…1933
CommonsGENERAL INTERIOR VIEW LOOKING WEST TOWARDS ALTAR - Sacred H…1933
CommonsGENERAL PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF EAST (FRONT) AND NORTH SIDE, LO…1933
CommonsGENERAL PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF EAST (FRONT), LOOKING WEST-NORT…19331990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Bowie Racetrack opens it's [i.e., its] 1928 season (1928) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (5) and the Library of Congress (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.