10 Of The Most Bizarre Landmarks In Maryland

Maryland is sometimes called the “Old Line State,” after the Maryland Line soldiers who stood their ground during the American Revolutionary War. Just like those stubborn fighters, the state is packed with bizarre landmarks that refuse to fade away, from Baltimore’s Phoenix Shot Tower, once the tallest building in the U.S., to the Bollman Truss Bridge, the last surviving cast-iron bridge of its kind, to the eerie Hell House Altar near Ellicott City, a crumbling remnant of a long-gone seminary. Here’s a closer look at the ten most bizarre landmarks that make Maryland wonderfully weird.

The Enchanted Forest Tree Maze, Clark’s Elioak Farm, Ellicott City

There’s something haunting, melancholic, and alluring about old amusement parks, especially when they contain colorful children’s attractions like pumpkin coaches, wishing wells, and gingerbread houses, reminders of childhood dreams now abandoned. Welcome to the Enchanted Forest Tree Maze, part of Clark’s Elioak Farm, a family-owned petting farm that houses the relics of a former storybook park in Ellicott City called The Enchanted Forest. The original park opened in August 1955, attracting families from across the U.S. until it closed in the early 1990s.

Enter the Clark family, a multi-generational farming operation in Howard County since 1797, who received the large, orange Cinderella Pumpkin Coach in 2004 on the proviso that they would eventually remove all of the original structures from the storybook park. In 2005, they added Mother Goose and her gosling, several gingerbread men, a large candy cane, and the list kept growing. Today, the Enchanted Forest Tree Maze is only one part of Clark’s Elioak Farm, which also includes a petting zoo, gem mining, a fairy forest, a U-pick farm, train and tractor rides, and much more.

Elijah Bond’s Gravestone, Baltimore

While not a household name, fans of the occult may know who Elijah Bond was. If you’re not a follower of the black arts, Ejijah Bond was an American lawyer and inventor, best known for patenting the Ouija board in 1891. Born in Bel Air, Maryland, on January 23, 1847, Bond died on April 14, 1921, at the age of 74. He is buried in the historic 180+ year-old Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, in an unmarked grave alongside the bones of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

Bond’s grave remained unmarked for decades until a noted paranormal sleuth and Ouija Board historian, Robert Murch, discovered its location after fifteen years of searching for it. Along with Murch, volunteers banded together to create a memorable headstone for the patent owner of the mysterious “talking board.” On one side of the headstone, you’ll see Bond’s full name, birth and death dates, and on the other side, you guessed it, a Ouija Board.

Vanadu Art House, Hyattsville

Vanadu Art House is a bizarre found-object art sculpture exploding with color and chaos created by Connecticut-born Clarke Bedford, a former art conservator in Hyattsville. A mash-up of “van” and “Xanadu,” the art house was inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem, “Kubla Khan,” about a magical, exotic place. The art house started taking shape when the artist took apart his Saab convertible and began incorporating parts of it into the fencing around his property. What didn’t fit into the fence, he started fixing to his house, and the sculpture grew.

Sometimes called “Vanadu Gardens” or “Assemblage Cottage” (pronounced using a rhyming French accent), the spectacle combines old washing machine parts, cars, globes, fans, and a skull, to name only a few of the found objects you’ll see. The artist in residence is happy to welcome visitors, but most of the artwork is visible from the sidewalk in the event he isn’t home to give you a tour.

Aspin Hill Memorial Park, Aspen Hill

Aspin Hill is one of the oldest pet cemeteries in the U.S., providing a peaceful resting place for pets since 1920. It began as a private dog kennel belonging to Richard and Bertha Birney, who bred Boston terriers, and slowly morphed into a boarding kennel and later a pet cemetery. Today, the cemetery is home to over 50,000 beloved family pets, including stars of movies and television, the pets of former U.S. presidents, and more. Some of the noteworthy pets in Aspin Hill include Spee De Bozo, J. Edgar Hoover’s dog; Napoleon, a weather-predicting Persian cat from Baltimore; and Gypsy, a capuchin monkey that belonged to a well-known panhandler from Washington, D.C. There are approximately 55 humans buried alongside their pets in the cemetery. At present, no additional plots are available.

Wheaton Station Escalator, Wheaton

The Wheaton Station escalator in Wheaton, Maryland, is rumored to be the longest single-span escalator in the Western Hemisphere. It takes just under three minutes (about two minutes and 52 seconds) to travel from top to bottom. The escalator measures 230 feet (70 meters) long and has a vertical rise of 115 feet (35 meters). It first opened on September 22, 1990.

While the escalator is long by North American standards, it is puny when compared to the world's longest escalator system. That honor belongs to Hong Kong, whose Central Hillside Escalator Link carries commuters between the Mid-Levels district and Central Market near the waterfront on Hong Kong Island. The 2,624-foot-long (800 meters) covered route with a vertical rise of 443 feet (135 meters) takes about 20 minutes and is used by 55,000 people daily.

Crystal Grottoes Caverns, Boonsboro

The Crystal Grottoes Caverns, Maryland’s only commercialized show caves, are often considered the most naturally decorated caverns in the world, displaying unique types of formations like stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and the rare helictites. Discovered by accident in 1920 when a construction crew was quarrying limestone for a nearby highway, the caves are a hidden system containing more awe-inspiring formations per square foot than any other cave.

The Crystal Grottoes Caverns first opened to the public in 1922, and since then, they have remained virtually unaltered from their initial state at the time of discovery. With over 900 feet of passageways, geology enthusiasts, day trippers, or junior spelunkers can explore chambers with names like “The Blanket Room” and “Fairyland.” After exploring the caves, kids will love panning for treasure at the attraction’s Gemstone Mill.

Mallows Bay Ghost Fleet, Charles County

A definite bucket list activity for any kayaking enthusiast is paddling the tranquil waters of the lower Potomac River, where you’ll discover the sunken relics of a haunting ship graveyard known by several different names, including the Mallows Bay Ghost Fleet, the Ghost Fleet of the Potomac, or the Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary. No matter what you call it, Mallows Bay is renowned as the resting place of the partially sunken remains of more than 100 wooden steamships built during World War I in response to attacks from German U-boats on merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean.

When the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917, they began hastily building ships from steel, concrete, and wood to support the war effort, but the war ended before many of them were finished. Obsolete and unfinished ships were sold for scrap, and then the rest were towed to Mallows Bay. When the project to dismantle the ships became too costly, they were abandoned, and the hulks that were left behind slowly sank into the bay. Over the years, nature took over, and the wooden frames became habitats for fish, birds, beavers, and bald eagles.

Bollman Truss Railroad Bridge, Savage

A National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, the Bollman Truss Bridge was completed in 1869 and is one of the earliest iron railroad bridges still standing today. It was revolutionary in its day for using all-iron construction at a time when most bridges were still made out of wood. It was built for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O), America’s first public passenger railroad, to carry early travelers between Baltimore and Washington, a line that became one of the busiest corridors in the U.S.

The bridge was designed by Wendel Bollman, a self-taught engineer at B&O. By the early 20th century, the Bollman Truss bridge was retired from use and relocated to Savage, Maryland, where it eventually became a historic landmark. Today, it is a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Little Patuxent River, leading to the scenic 0.8-mile Savage Mill Trail.

Hell House Altar, Ilchester

Hell House Altar is the stuff of legends, urban legends, that is. It sits on the ruins of 1868-built St. Mary’s College, a 19th-century Catholic seminary on a cliff overlooking the Patapsco River. The college trained hundreds of young men for the priesthood until attendance decreased and the college was abandoned in 1972. Eventually, the historic building fell into disrepair, and according to locals, the main building of the school was set ablaze during a mysterious fire on Halloween night in 1996. The only structure left standing was a gazebo with a large metal cross.

Set against the backdrop of the woods of Patapsco Valley State Park, the gazebo garnered a spooky reputation as a hotspot of Satanic activity, ghostly apparitions, and devil worship, and earned the nickname of “Hell House Altar.” None of this activity has ever been verified, but it makes for a great local legend or a story to tell around the campfire.

Phoenix Shot Tower, Baltimore

Built in 1828, the red-brick Phoenix Shot Tower was once the tallest building in the U.S. at 215 feet until 1846, when it was displaced by Trinity Church in New York City, which had a spire reaching 281 feet. The tower, constructed from an estimated 1.1 million bricks, was used to manufacture “drop shot,” which served as ammunition for hunting small game and birds. The small lead pellets were made by pouring molten lead through a colander at the top of the tower, and as the droplets fell through the air, they formed a near-perfect spherical pellet that cooled and hardened when they landed in a water basin at the bottom of the tower.

Scheduled for demolition, a group of Baltimore citizens bought the Shot Tower for $17,000 in 1924 and donated it to the city with the understanding that it would be preserved as a historic landmark. The Phoenix Shot Tower opened as a museum in 1973 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Landmarks in Maryland are more than just sights for visiting tourists; they’re keepers of history, culture, and local legend. From Revolutionary War relics and industrial marvels to quirky roadside oddities and ghostly ruins, each site tells a story about the people, events, and imagination that shaped the Old Line State. Together, they preserve Maryland’s rich past while offering a playful, sometimes mysterious window into its character today.