Local Spotlight 

By Kristen E. Humphrey, MLA, Local Assistance and Training Planner  

This article provides an update on exciting developments in and around historic Middletown’s main street, originally described in the December 8, 2021 edition of Planning Practice Monthly.

The wonderful synergy described in our original article, entitled An Historic Main Street Sees New Life: Middletown, Maryland Takes Off, has continued in Middletown, demonstrating yet again, that vitality can be brought to an entire town and surrounding area when new life is breathed into its main street. 

Such synergy is not by accident, rather by design: it is the result of employing planning best practices specifically in community development and placemaking. This requires both direct and indirect investment (via incentives such as those found in the town’s Downtown Revitalization Zone Investment Program), as well as a robust collaboration among government officials, state and local agencies, and community stakeholders, in this case enhanced and facilitated by Middletown Main Street. 

Just in time to celebrate the 25^th year of Maryland’s Main Street program, MDP is continuing our conversation with Becky Axilbund, Middletown’s Main Street Manager, to learn about some recent developments. Here are some key happenings — in this special corner of the state — she was eager to share:

Agro-tourism: 

Agro-tourism has become big in Frederick County in general. When I first started as Main Street Manager, there were two big farms in the area – South Mountain Creamery and Jumbo’s Pumpkin Patch.  

Within my first year, we had our first winery – Orchid Cellars, a woman-owned, family operated winery which focuses on a family recipe for mead, or honey wine. Now there is Mazzeroth Winery on Route 17, just a bit north of the town limits, which is also doing really well with some award-winning wines. 

To the east of town off Hollow Road, is Summers Farm. Summers Farm was apparently once on the Golden Mile in Frederick and moved to its Middletown location sometime in 2022 because of continued development on the Golden Mile. While still at its Frederick location, many viewed it as “The Farm” attracting numerous public-school field trips each year. It has developed a substantial loyal fan base.  

Now at its new location on the outskirts of Middletown, we see some “real traffic” on big festival days and other events. This activity brings a lot of people to Middletown’s doorstep, where they can explore everything our revitalized main street has to offer. 

Valley-HomeMade & Homegrown is another newer farm venture, located on Picnic Woods Road also just outside town limits). Picnic Woods Road is an old local road where back-in-the-day church revivals may have been held. Valley-Ho is a pick your own flower farm with dairy and crop farming roots that go back generations.   

William F. Moran, Jr. Museum

A native of Frederick, William Moran, Jr. (1925-2006), was an internationally known and internationally collected bladesmith. The Moran Knife Shop is a small shop that has been kept intact. In October 2022, a new museum opened adjacent to it and is located at the corner of US 40 Alt and Hollow Road (and yes, Hollow Road is the road one takes to get to the Summers Farm).  This unusual museum is likely to be a mecca for forged knife collectors and aficionados and is also in a prime position to capture some drive-by audiences.   

  Town Hall Heritage Gallery: 

Middletown Town Hall recently acquired an eclectic collection of Middletown historic items and ephemera, known as the Bussard Collection, named for local collector, Larry Bussard. To build upon and grow the town as a tourist destination, the town plans to create several exhibits to be displayed on a rotating basis in a gallery space on the third floor of the Town Hall. The Town Hall and the future Heritage Gallery will be Middletown visitors’ second stop after visiting Main Street’s Welcome Center.   

Some themes represented in this collection include: commerce (including items such as cancelled checks, invoices, receipts, various company letterheads, and marketing items); schools (e.g., graduations, yearbooks, theatrical productions/playbills); social history (e.g., local sport teams and clubs); religious and secular institutions such as local churches, the volunteer fire company, and the Valley Register Newspaper which ran from 1840 until the 1990s. 

The artifacts illustrate the local history of the people, places, and events, as well as shed light on how the community reacted to larger, national or world, events such as wars, natural disasters, the death of U.S. presidents and more. 

For more information about Middletown Main Street, please visit https://mainstreetmiddletown.org/ or contact  Becky Axilbund, Middletown Main Street Manager, at .