Braddock Heights is on top of Braddock Mountain, just west of the City of Frederick. In 1896, the first railway between Middletown and Frederick was completed. To entice riders, the rail company started what would become the Braddock Heights resort and amusement park at the top of the mountain.
Hood College students made no hesitation in taking advantage of the trolley ride up to Braddock Heights, before the line was actually completed from Frederick to Middletown. Students and several male chaperones boarded the trolley, “trimmed in blue and gray bunting” in Sept., 1896. The trip almost immediately became an annual event and in 1906 it evolved into the picnic beloved for many years.
In the early days, the girls spent time roaming around the mountainside and dancing on the dance floor. They ate a late picnic lunch and sang Hood songs from the observatory tower at sunset. Tradition held that students must sing after eating, as “Braddock picnic is one of the times of the year when Hood lives up to its reputation as the ‘singing college’.”[1]
In later years, Hood girls took open trolley cars filled with hay up the mountain to the festivities. They skated, bowled, swam, rode the merry-go-round, slid down the long wooden slide on sacks, and watched shows in the auditorium. Lunch was always brought up with the girls, arranged by the school’s dietician. Hearty souls would make the five mile trek back to campus on foot, another Braddock Picnic tradition.
Hood students made the yearly trip to Braddock Heights from its very beginnings as a destination until the closing of the amusement park in 1966, a tradition that lasted seventy years. After the park closed, picnics were organized to High Knob and Camp RAUdy, leaving only echoes of Hood songs and laughter in Braddock Heights.
[1] Blue and Grey, Oct. 7, 1932
