Bowie, MD

Bowie State University gives the city an institutional history older than its largest neighborhoods. The university grew from a Baltimore school opened in 1865 to educate Black citizens and train teachers. Maryland moved the institution to a former farm in Bowie in 1911; today it is the state's oldest historically Black university, with programs spanning education, science, technology, business, and the arts. MARC's Penn Line stops beside the campus on its route between Washington and Baltimore, making the university both a residential academic community and a rail destination. The active corridor also connects Bowie State to the transportation story that produced the original town farther south. Rail created that first town center. The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad opened Bowie Station in 1872 at the junction of its Washington and Southern Maryland lines.

Developer Ben Plumb laid out Huntington City around it, and the Maryland legislature incorporated Huntington in 1874. The town took the Bowie name in 1880 to honor Governor Oden Bowie, a railroad promoter and company president. Passenger service at the old station ended in 1989 when MARC moved its stop north to Bowie State University. The city later restored the depot buildings as the Bowie Railroad Museum, preserving the signal tower, waiting rooms, and research library in Old Town. The active tracks remain beside the museum, so the place where Bowie began still presents its railroad history in the setting that produced it. Modern Bowie functions as a city of named neighborhoods, often called sections, spread across a large part of northeastern Prince George's County. Many residents identify their location by the section name, reflecting Bowie's growth from farms and villages into several distinct centers.

Old Town occupies the railroad settlement, the Belair sections contain much of the midcentury city, and newer civic and commercial sites gather near Northview Drive and Maryland Route 197. Allen Pond Park is part of that newer center and serves as a recurring gathering ground for festivals, concerts, skating, and other programs. During amphitheater construction in 2026, the weekly summer concert series moved to another field within the park. The university, historic station, museums, shopping areas, and major park occupy different parts of this city of sections. A separate growth story begins at Belair. The mansion was built around 1745 for colonial governor Samuel Ogle on an estate that later became a nationally important Thoroughbred stud.

Gallant Fox, the 1930 Triple Crown winner, and his son Omaha, the 1935 winner, were both raised there—the only father-and-son pair to capture that title. William J. Levitt bought the estate in 1957 and used the mansion as his office while Levitt and Sons constructed most of modern Bowie between 1957 and 1964. The company then sold the mansion to the city for one dollar with a requirement that it remain in public use. It served as City Hall from 1964 through 1977 and now operates as a museum; the nearby stable interprets the estate's racing history. These preserved buildings sit inside the postwar sections that replaced most of the estate around them.