A few miles upriver from Ellicott City, on a quiet bend of the Patapsco, are the foundations of a textile mill village that was systematically erased in the late 1960s. The walk in is along a flat gravel trail through Patapsco Valley State Park; you cross a footbridge and suddenly find yourself among brick steps that lead to nothing, the granite footings of vanished houses, and the sole surviving building — Gary Memorial Methodist Church, still in occasional use.
It is one of the strangest places in central Maryland, and almost no one is ever there. Park at the Daniels Area trailhead; allow an hour to wander.