Charlotte Hall, MD

Charlotte Hall is a census-designated place spread across Charles and St. Mary's counties in Southern Maryland. The 2010 census counted 1,420 residents. Its oldest story is tied to Coole Springs, a freshwater spring recorded in the late seventeenth century, and to the school founded here in 1774 by Queen Charlotte. The school eventually added military training, became Charlotte Hall Military Academy, and remained part of the village's map for generations. Old Route 5 still runs through the historic core, where the road's alignment and surviving buildings make the older settlement easy to read.

After the boarding school closed in 1976, Maryland purchased the grounds the following year and opened Charlotte Hall Veterans Home in 1985, creating a new use for the old academy property. The Charlotte Hall Historic District entered the National Register in 1974 and includes the academy campus, Dent Chapel, the 1803 White House, and other buildings and sites. Today the place is organized around that historic road, the veterans home campus, nearby farmland, and the two-county rural crossroads around Route 5.