Welcome to Maryland from the West... the Fort Cumberland Hotel

As America through the second decade of the 20th Century, Cumberland, Maryland took upon itself to add to the "Queen City" with the construction of a new hotel, to serve not only travelers on the new National Highway as  well as potential new convention business, but also as a gathering place for important local events. Originally planned to open July 1, 1917, stock in the company was entirely subscribed to locally.

Construction on the Fort Cumberland Hotel began in 1917 when the Cumberland Hotel Company gave the contract to Kean & Clark of Cumberland to build the hotel. Located on the northwest corner of Baltimore and North Liberty Streets is a six-story, fireproof brick hotel. Designed by Fred Webber, of Philadelphia, it was built at over a cost of $250,000. As built, it contained 180 rooms, 150 with their own bathroom.

Opening on January 10, 1918. this block-like brick hotel, with classically inspired applied stone ornaments is one of two hotels in Cumberland remaining from the age of railroad transportation. The main entrance with "marquee" is located in the east side along North Liberty Street, with several commercial fronts along Baltimore Street. The principal windows of the second story, which are doubles, have bracketed entablatures. Two belt courses band the street sides between the fifth and sixth floor windows with panels of stone carving below the top floor openings. The structure is crowned with a dentilled stone cornice and a frieze of carved panels and triglyphs below and a closed parapet above. Clusters of flowers drop from the triglyphs flanking the upper story windows. The carved panels are floral arrangements with mermaids.

Generally, hotels from this period provided a lobby, dining room, and a ballroom or smaller gathering rooms on the first floor. These first-floor spaces were often used by local organizations, which hotel owners encouraged to create greater ties between their business and the community. The upper floors contained the guest rooms. By the 1920s most guest rooms in small city hotels had their own bathrooms, while just three decades earlier individual bathrooms would have been quite rare.

Known for its culinary delights, a few of the recipes from the Fort Cumberland Hotel have been preserved for posterity. In 1932 recipes for Lobster Thermidor and Braised Duckling Bigarrade were published in "Eat, Drink And Be Merry in Maryland," which had been provided to the author by Ivan W. Poling, manager of the hotel.

The hotel, then known as the Cumberland Arms, closed in 1976 when it was turned into senior housing. Today the building is a 69-unit low income housing property still known as the Cumberland Arms run by The Hampstead Companies.

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