Maryland: Death of a Company Town

Tiny Daniels, Md. (pop. 381), is one of the last examples of that almost vanished bit of Americana, the company town, which once ranged from Western mine and lumber settlements to Southern cotton camps. Somehow, Daniels, nestled in a wooded hollow along a back road eleven miles west of Baltimore, has managed to survive. Its company store, company houses, company-dominated churches and company mill—its raison d'être—all remained intact in the age of the megalopolis.

Intact, that is, until last month, when the C. R. Daniels textile company, which wholly owns the 128-year-old community, started demolishing it in line with a...

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