Washington Comes to Cumberland

The Washingtonization of Cumberland? Not hardly but this story from The Washington Post explains the town's attraction.


Main Street Turns a Corner
Urbanites Drawn to Cumberland, Md., by Small-Town Potential
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Jorge Zamorano whipped out a copy of the Cumberland Times-News from behind the bar at the Starfish Cafe, one of two restaurants he owns on Capitol Hill.

The newspaper trumpeted a 17 percent increase in housing prices in the Western Maryland town over the past year. Zamorano, a Cuban-born artist and restaurateur, was pleased at his prescience.

Fourteen years ago, on a snowy Christmas vacation, he found himself in the mountain town, watching fat flakes swirl around the Victorian main street.

"I was mesmerized by the beauty of it," he said. "The first thought that came to mind was 'It's a Wonderful Life.' "

Then came the second thought: "What a shame, all the buildings boarded up and empty. This place in the right hands? The potential!"

Since then, a noticeable stream of outsiders from Washington and elsewhere have moved to Cumberland, a city of about 21,000 on the C&O Canal, to take advantage of low real estate prices and a slower lifestyle.

For Zamorano, it took 10 years of visits, watching Baltimore Street, the main drag, being revitalized by a National Trust for Historic Preservation Main Street project, before he lured his business partner, Miguel Rodriguez, to the town.

"I fell in love immediately," Rodriguez said.

They bought one building for a clone of Zamorano's other Capitol Hill restaurant, the Banana Cafe, but before construction began, Zamorano wanted to buy another.

The Manhattan Bar and Grill was the first of their two restaurants to open, four years ago. "It was the day after Thanksgiving, when they light the Christmas tree. It's a huge event in Cumberland," Zamorano said.

"Like Rockefeller Center," Rodriguez added. "There were 5,000 people out front. We ran out of food."

They now divide their time between Washington and Cumberland, switching off weeks, enjoying the town, forgetting the world.
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Jorge Zamorano, left, and
Miguel Rodriguez
branched out from two restaurants on
Capitol Hill to open two more in
Cumberland.
(By Stephanie Cavanaugh
for The Washington Post)

Cumberland and the Economy

Cumberland is in the process of refortifying its economy. This story from the Cumberland Times-News of July 8, 2007, is an excellent look back at what the town has been through.

Life after Kelly
Michael A. Sawyers
Cumberland Times-News
CUMBERLAND — On a spring day in 2094, if anybody thinks to do it, people who are not yet born will disassemble a time capsule kept at what is now the Allegany County Office Complex alongside a thoroughfare appropriately named Kelly Road.

By then, the capsule will be 100 years old. That day far in the future will also be the 200th anniversary of the founding of what became The Kelly-Springfield Tire Co., an enterprise that once pumped out 11,000 automobile tires a day at this very site. It was a corporation that fed and clothed thousands of local families. “The Kelly,” as people called it, was a large slice in the pie chart of Cumberland life.

For 82 years, through two wars, through the Great Depression and through thick ply and thin, the smell of rubber was the smell of money.During the early 1980s, the Goodyear subsidiary generated a payroll of $54 million. Not only did that mean that production workers lived reasonably well, but it meant that Greene Street liquor stores sold more six packs when shifts ended. It meant that nearby Squilaci’s had a line of customers waiting to use the billiards table or to order a sandwich. After all, 7 a.m. is happy hour to someone who started working at 11 p.m. the previous day. It meant that this well-paying smokestack industry remained in Allegany County.

Twenty years ago, on May 21, that all came to an end and 1,010 workers had to go on with their lives.
full story: http://www.times-news.com/archivesearch/local_story_189105528.html

"Chillin' Right Here"

A youtube troubador known as Ryan V with a song he says was inspired by Cumberland:

Western Maryland Scenic Railroad

The old steam engine train is visible from the deck of our house. The 32-mile roundtrip from Cumberland to Frostburg is especially pretty in the fall and it's a good idea to make reservations. There also is a special Christmas train.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVuDSPon1MU

Western Maryland Scenic Railroad: www.wmsr.com.

Weekend getaways

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072500774.html