Qualla: Berlin, Maryland

Berlin, Maryland: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Berlin is pronounced Burl'in, with the accent firmly on the first syllable. The town's name has nothing to do with Germany. It is a contraction of Burley Inn - the tavern that stood at the crossroads of the Philadelphia Post Road and the Sinepuxent Road in the late 1700s, on land that had been patented as the Burley Plantation by William Tomkins in 1677. Tourists who arrive on US 50 from Washington occasionally ask why the German pronunciation is unwelcome. The answer is local pride. The town has carried this name for two hundred years. The pronunciation is older than the spelling.

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Image: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berlin, Maryland: The Crossroads That Grew

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Berlin sits on a 300-acre tract that was originally the Burley Plantation. As Native American hunting paths became colonial highways, the plantation found itself at a crossroads: the post road north to Philadelphia met the Sinepuxent Road east to the barrier islands. A tavern, bl...

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Image: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berlin, Maryland: Hale, Maryland and Treegap

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Hollywood discovered Berlin twice in three years. In 1999, Paramount Pictures filmed Runaway Bride with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts using Main Street as the fictional town of Hale, Maryland. The production crew altered storefronts, planted fake mailboxes, and dressed the stree...

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Image: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berlin, Maryland: Man o' War's Foal Years

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. Just east of Berlin, on Glen Riddle Farm, stood the training stables of Samuel D. Riddle. Riddle owned a chestnut colt named Man o' War, who in 1919 and 1920 ran one of the most dominant racing campaigns in American thoroughbred history. The horse won 20 of his 21 starts, set fiv...

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Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Berlin, Maryland: The Vice President's Last Hospital

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Atlantic General Hospital, a 62-bed facility founded in 1993, sits in Berlin. On September 17, 1996, former Vice President Spiro Agnew died there of acute leukemia at age 77. Agnew had resigned the vice presidency in October 1973 amid a corruption investigation - he eventually pl...

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Image: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berlin, Maryland: The Cool Small Town

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Dough4872, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 2014, Budget Travel magazine named Berlin America's Coolest Small Town - an honor that drew busloads of weekend tourists and pushed downtown rents higher than the residents had ever seen. The designation also accelerated the revival of the commercial district that had started ...

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Image: User:Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 3.0