Highfield-Cascade, MD

Highfield-Cascade is a Washington County census-designated place more commonly called Cascade, built from two closely spaced communities on South Mountain. The old name is a paperwork mouthful, but the history is tidy: the Western Maryland Railway arrived in 1872, Pen Mar Park opened nearby in 1877, and Highfield and Cascade grew as mountain resort communities. Military Road now runs through a historic district of late-19th- and early-20th-century houses, while Fort Ritchie keeps the area’s military chapter in view. Highfield-Cascade is western Maryland in a rail-and-mountain arrangement.