Well, that's Main Street in Sykesville in the early 20th century.

Notice the two little girls. They grew up, got old, and died. So did the horses, and hopefully long before the little girls. Notice the hitching posts on the sidewalk. Do you see the lady by the storefront window in front of the white horse? Notice the scrap of paper on the dirt street blowing by like a tumbleweed. I wonder what it said. I wonder if it blew into the river and washed away.

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All the buildings got old, too, like the people, but unlike the people, they're still here, and so is Main Street. The sun beats on that side of the street, so they put up awnings. There was no such thing as air conditioning, or electricity, for that matter.

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The awning on the left says Mellor & Sons. Ed Mellor was Sykesville's first mayor. And its third. One day at work in that building, Ed got a headache. He walked home, just a short walk up a hill to a house that's still there. And then he died on his couch.

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Years later, one terrible night in that same house, a brother shot another brother in the leg with a shotgun in the kitchen with their mother looking on. The house was one of Sykesville's first. Another former mayor, a much more contemporary mayor named Jonathan Herman, recently renovated the house.

 

Every building and every house in Sykesville has its stories. And so does Jonathan, because while most people might go into an old house and look around, he rips them apart, then puts them back together again. He finds things in the walls.

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Who is behind this site?

Jack and Andrea White started Sykesville Online many years ago to tell stories about the town. Jack does most of the work on this new site himself. Andrea designs and edits the books.

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Jack writes under the name of Jack McBride White, and has written three books that relate to the town in some way. Sykesville Stories, Volume 1 is a collection of stories by various authors about the town.

 

In Carrie's Footprints, the Long Walk of Warren Dorsey is about the Dorsey family and Sykesville's small black Community.

 

In Search of Helen from Two Locks is not solely focused on Sykesville, but the story is centered around a woman who died at Springfield Hospital, once known as "The Second Maryland Hospital for the Insane." The hospital sits right beside the town and was almost a city unto itself. It's a huge part of the area's history.

 

You can read more about Jack and his books at jackwhitestories.com.

 

Do you have a story for us?

Well then, click here.