Oakland, the B&O, and the Jones/Imboden Raid

Oakland, the B&O, and the Jones/Imboden Raid. . , In many ways the Town of Oakland owes its early development as one of Garrett County's largest towns and as the county seat to the arrival of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In 1851 the railroad meandered through the Youghiogheny Glades on its way to Wheeling, Virginia and the Ohio River. The small community once known as "Slabtown" began in the late 1840's under the leadership of pioneer Isaac McCarty. He designed the plat for the original town near the location of the much earlier (1812) Yough Glades Post Office at the Armstrong Tavern. This tavern was a major stop on the mail route from Westernport to Morgantown and Clarksburg., Once the railroad reached Oakland, the town and the area around it soon became an early mecca for people of the Baltimore/Washington corridor as well as points to the west. The Glades Hotel was Oakland's first railroad, established in the early 1850's shortly after the arrival of the trains. This hotel was still in existence in April 1863 when the Jones/Imboden raiders passed through the town with the major objective of destroying the Youghiogheny railroad bridge just west of the town.