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Learn about La Plata, Maryland
La Plata is a small town and the county seat of Charles County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 7.45 square miles, of which 7.40 square miles is land and 0.05 square miles is water. The climate in La Plata is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. La Plata shares its eastern border with the community of Port Tobacco, White Plains lies to the north, and Bel Alton borders the town to the south.
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The community is largely residential, with many residents employed by the Charles County Government. Others commute to nearby Waldorf or to Washington, DC, and Baltimore for work, including employment at Joint Base Andrews and Naval Air Station Patuxent River.
In recent years, La Plata has been transforming into a thriving business and commercial center due to the development of new office buildings and the town’s reconstruction efforts. |
Just outside the town is Historic Mount Carmel, a Catholic convent built in 1790. La Plata is home to numerous county offices, the University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center, and the main campus of the College of Southern Maryland. Community amenities include the Port Tobacco Players community theater, a large outdoor athletic complex, two nursing homes, and a wide variety of stores, churches, and restaurants. A farmers’ market is held twice weekly near the Charles County Courthouse complex.
According to an unconfirmed local tradition, La Plata was named by Colonel Samuel Chapman, whose family owned 6,000 acres in Charles County. While traveling in South America with his son George in search of treatment for tuberculosis, Colonel Chapman reportedly encountered the Río de la Plata, a major river flowing through Argentina and Uruguay. He later named a portion of his property “La Plata.”
In the 1870s, a section of the Pennsylvania Railroad was constructed through La Plata, leading to the town’s incorporation in 1888. After the Port Tobacco courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1895, a new courthouse was built in La Plata. The historic Christ Episcopal Church of Port Tobacco, originally constructed in 1683 and rebuilt in 1884, was dismantled in 1904. Its stones were transported by oxen and cart to its current location in La Plata.
Transportation improvements also shaped the town’s development. In 1940, the Potomac River Bridge opened, carrying U.S. Route 301 across the Potomac River and linking La Plata with King George, Virginia. The bridge, later named the Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge, brought significant east coast traffic through the area. Construction of a new bridge began in 2020, and it opened in late 2022.
La Plata has been impacted by two major tornadoes in its history. On November 9, 1926, an F4 tornado struck the town, killing 17 people, 14 of whom were students at La Plata Elementary School, which was destroyed. A second F4 tornado occurred on April 28, 2002, carving a 24-mile path through Charles County and causing extensive damage around La Plata, as well as four fatalities. In the aftermath, federal- and state-assisted reconstruction efforts helped revitalize the downtown area. everal new public buildings were constructed, including the new La Plata Town Hall, which became Southern Maryland’s first LEED-certified building.