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Learn About Beltsville, Maryland

Beltsville is a community in northern Prince George’s County.  It includes the unincorporated community of Vansville.  Beltsville is located about 7 miles northeast of Washington, DC.  According to the United States Census Bureau, Beltsville has a total area of 7.2 square miles.  That area contains 7.1 square miles of land and 0.04 square miles of water.  A small part of Beltsville is located in Montgomery County.  The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.

The history of Beltsville dates back to 1649.  The land was part of an 80,000-acre land grant.  It was given to Richard Snowden I by Lord Baltimore of England.  Snowden and his family were planters.  They established large plantations with  comfortable manor homes.  Other settlers soon moved into the Beltsville area.  They were farmers who could only afford a few acres of land.  They lived in small cabins.  The main crop in the area was tobacco.  Most of it was shipped to England.  The crops prospered because of the fertile soil and desirable growing conditions.

Industry came to Beltsville in the early 18th century.  That’s when iron ore was discovered in the area.  The Muirkirk Iron Furnace was established by Andrew and Elias Elliott.  They learned iron-making skills in Muirkirk, Scotland.  The Elliott’s  produced some of the best-quality pig iron in the country.  They supplied the U.S. Army with cannons, shot, wheels, and other iron products during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

Beltsville was home to a Revolutionary War hero.  Brigadier General Rezin Beall was born on Turkey Flight Plantation in 1723.  The plantation was on Old Gunpowder Road.  He and a group of only 100 men prevented a British invasion at Drum Point on the Chesapeake Bay.  It is said that there are no Revolutionary War battlefields in Maryland because of Beall.

In 1835, one of the first rail lines in the country was built in Beltsville.  It was the Washington branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.  The line entered the County in Laurel.  It then ran to the southwest to Bladensburg.  The line then continued into Washington, DC.  B&O built a rail stop and freight depot in Beltsville.  It was on land purchased from Trueman Belt.  He was a local land owner.  The area was named for him.  Beltsville soon became a thriving trading center.  It replaced the older community of Vansville that was located further north.

Beltsville was marketed to professionals who wanted to escape the congestion of Washington, DC.  The community was developed with a mixture of Victorian-style houses and Colonial Revival houses.  An electric railway was extended to Beltsville.  That enhanced development of the area.  It was the Berwyn and Laurel Electric Railroad.  The railroad suffered financial problems and was bought by the City and Suburban Railway.  The streetcar line ran west of the railroad along what is now Rhode Island Avenue.  It helped with creating more subdivisions.  Beltsville continued developing slowly in the 1930’s and 1940’s as modest homes were built.  More homes were built after the automobile started to become popular.  It was after World War II, though, that Beltsville began to develop quickly.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) started to buy land in Beltsville in 1910.  This was for USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.  The land now houses the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC).  The first parcel was 375 acres of the Walnut Grange Plantation.  It later covered 14,600 acres.   The Center became the largest and most prominent agricultural science research centers in the world.