BCPL History and Genealogy - Perry Hall - Perry Hall Since 1980.
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Perry Hall Since 1980
by David Marks
Historian, Perry Hall Improvement Association

The 1980's brought radical changes to Perry Hall, with housing developments, shopping centers, and thousands of new families converging on a rural, pastoral area. While longtime residents became alarmed at their community's growth, it was certainly to be expected. Baltimore County was growing at a rate of nearly 100,000 residents every decade, and Perry Hall was merely the frontier of the expanding suburban belt, one of the last undeveloped areas to have city water and sewerage. Few people, however, could have predicted the consequences of such growth since 1980.

Between 1980 and 1990, Perry Hall's population almost doubled, rising from 13,455 to 22,723 residents. The US Census Bureau estimates that over six thousand housing units were constructed over a ten-year period, most in the vast area behind Seven Courts and Gunpowder Elementary School. With the sudden growth in population came crowded rooms, clogged schools, and a dwindling supply of open space. By the end of the decade, public pressure had become so great that the Baltimore County Council, its membership the beneficiaries of a voter revolt in 1990, had declared a moratorium on construction until certain adequate facilities were built.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Baltimore County planners had targeted the Perry Hall-White Marsh area for concentrated development since the late 1960's. By focusing growth into two principal regions, in Owings Mills and Perry Hall/White Marsh, they hoped to better control the anticipated exodus of city residents into the county. They set idealistic goals. recommending "planned communities" in the spirit of James Rouse's Columbia. According to the 1985 Perry Hall-White Marsh Plan, new police and fire stations, a library, and sewer improvements would "meet the needs of existing and future residents for the next 15 years."

This assumption failed on three counts. First, it was adopted in 1985, four years after the opening of White Marsh Mall and the approval of the largest developments in the area. Second. it failed to consider outside factors which might hinder the construction of adequate facilities: economic recession, limited state assistance, and political resistance from older communities. Third, it treated the two "growth areas" as similar entities. Owings Mills, however, was built almost entirely over farmland, while growth in Perry Hall would be overlayed on top of an existing, 200 year-old community.

To many longtime residents, the years since 1980 have meant the destruction of a quiet way of life and the loss of familiar, unique community landmarks. In 1985, for example, Berg's dairy went out of business, ending a Perry Hall tradition of thick milk shakes and romance. That same year, Baltimore County regulators allowed Kentucky Fried Chicken to bulldoze Bishop's Inn, one of the last remaining historic landmarks in Perry Hall. The situation reached its boiling point in 1988, when leaders from the Perry Hall Improvement Association failed to prevent the development of Cedarside Farm, which had been used for decades as a community park. This was the last truly open space along the central Belair Road corridor.

The tremendous strain of development on the Perry Hall community has spurred a new exodus: the flight of Baltimore County residents northward along Route 1, to rapidly-growing Harford County, with its lower property taxes and limited urban problems. This exodus was the principal reason for the 1994 Honeygo plan, which will attempt to better manage growth within Perry Hall's last undeveloped region. Single-family homes will be emphasized, as well as lifelong attachments to Baltimore County and the Perry Hall community.

If growth has brought its share of problems to Perry Hall, development has also created new opportunities and a diversified way of life. The construction of White Marsh Mall and the surrounding Towne Center generated thousands of new jobs, bringing state-of-the-art medical, service, and technological industries to an undeveloped region. Perry Hall has now been linked to a regional economy. If the community sacrificed a pastoral way of life and much of its unique identity, Perry Hall gained access to new employment, technology, and an expanding business sector. In a physical sense, this growth might be epitomized by the 1993 opening of Route 43, which directly connected Perry Hall and White Marsh to the Baltimore Beltway and Pulaski Highway. Other significant improvements included the construction of Joppa View and Seven Oaks Elementary Schools in 19907 the opening of the White Marsh library in 19887 and the extension of Perry Hall Boulevard in 1990.

Despite these changes, Perry Hall retains time-honored traditions and strong pride in local institutions. The school is very much the center of the community, with Perry Hall High's annual Homecoming parade bringing out hundreds of spectators along Ebenezer Road. Strong PTA's represent the bedrock of Perry Hall's successful schools. A new tradition, the community Christmas tree-lighting at Perry Hall Elementary School, has grown every year since 1990, drawing over three hundred spectators annually.

In the midst of change and development, the themes of family and local pride run strong in Perry Hall, as they have since Harry Dorsey Gough founded his family estate in 1775 and industrious immigrants cleared the land after the Civil War. Some things never change.

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The text version of this page was last revised on 26 August 2008.
The graphics version of this page was last revised on 26 August 2008.
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