Croom, Close to Home

Croom Archive · Aviation

History · Community

Where Croom Learned to Fly: The Story of Columbia Air Center

Along the Patuxent River, Black aviators built a place to learn, work, gather, and fly. Columbia Air Center records a Croom story of initiative during the era of segregation.

Croom Archive · Education

History · Community

Croom’s School of Possibility: Learning Skills, Building Futures

From 1903 through 1952, a Croom school offered African American students practical learning and skills for work and life.

Croom Archive · Village life

History · Local Life

Where Croom Road Became a Village

In the 1850s and 1860s, Croom grew around a church, a store and post office, and the skilled trades that helped a rural community work day by day.

Croom Archive · School days

History · Community

Before the Bus Route: Croom’s One-Room School Days

The Croom Schoolhouse brought a one-room public classroom to the village in 1908. A 1919 report offers a rare, practical glimpse of the building—and of the limits of rural schooling a century ago.

Croom Archive · Patuxent

History · Nature

Where the Patuxent Keeps Time: Mount Calvert’s Deep History

The Patuxent Water Trail describes Mount Calvert as a landscape with archaeological and historical resources representing more than 8,000 years of human culture.

Croom Archive · Seasons

Nature · Local Life

When the Geese Come Back to Croom

At Merkle Natural Resources Management Area, winter geese are more than a familiar sight. Their return connects today’s Croom landscape to Edgar Merkle’s long conservation effort and Maryland’s 1970 decision to protect the place for wildlife.

Croom Archive · Community

History · Community

Where Faith Made Room: St. Simon’s Mission and Pauli Murray’s Croom Years

Before its congregation joined St. Thomas’, St. Simon’s Mission was a center of African American worship, learning, and community life in Croom. It also formed part of the childhood world of Pauli Murray, the pioneering attorney, writer, civil-rights advocate, and Episcopal priest.

Croom Archive · Watershed

History · Nature · Local Life

Mattaponi: A Croom House Named for Water

Mattaponi’s name points us toward the water: a historic Croom house, an older dwelling beneath it, and the Patuxent landscape that still connects fields, marshes, and creeks.

Croom Archive · Tobacco

History · Local Life

Email access

The Barns That Tobacco Built: Croom’s Most Familiar Landmarks, and Why They Are Disappearing

Those tall, weathered barns along Croom’s back roads were built for one crop. For three centuries it paid the bills here; after 2001, it almost vanished.

Croom Archive · Nottingham

History · Nature · Local Life

Email access

At the End of Nottingham Road: The Port That Made Croom a Crossroads

On the Patuxent River near Upper Marlboro, a nearly vanished port town reveals why Croom’s country roads have always connected to a much larger story.