Oldtown, MD

Oldtown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Allegany County, Maryland, United States, along the North Branch Potomac River. The 2010 census counted 86 residents. Oldtown was founded in 18th century colonial times and was initially called "Opessa's Town" or "Shawanese Old Town" because it was the site of a Shawnee Amerindian village established by Opessa Straight Tail and abandoned about 1725. Oldtown was begun with the building of a trading post along an old Native American trail, the Nemacolin Trail, as traders, especially fur traders pushed through the Cumberland Narrows mountain pass into the Monongahela River valley. A newcomer can read Oldtown through the overlap of its older landmarks, surrounding geography, and current places. For a newcomer, Oldtown comes into focus through those concrete links among its past, landscape, and current routines.