White Hall

White Hall. . , After passing through the village of Monkton, the Northern Central Railroad continued northward through the abandoned villages of Pleasant Valley and Bluemount toward White Hall, a distance of approximately 3.5 miles., Early in the 1800s a large white house was built on a rise to the west of the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad (later to become the NCR) tracks. The community of White Hall today is said to have been named for this house. The house, which burned many years ago, was alternately used as a post office, train station, livery stable, and boarding house. White Hall once bustled as a commercial center in the midst of a farming community. There were 3 stores, a feed mill, a bank, a hotel, a grist mill, and a paper mill. At one time the paper mill operated 24 hours a day. The mill closed in 1984, but the building remains in use today by a local contractor., The feed mill was an impressive 5-story wooden structure on Wiseburg Road which served as the community's landmark for 71 years until it was set on fire by an arsonist and burned in 1974. This property is now used as a maintenance shop for the Department of Natural Resources' NCR Trail. The 1909 White Hall National bank served the community's banking needs until it was bought out in 1958. Today the old bank building serves as a residence for one of the park rangers. The old 16 room White Hall Hotel is now a private residence and can be seen just east of the NCR Trail along White Hall Road. Several beautiful late 1800s homes are scattered throughout the area featuring a variety of different styles of architecture., The old grist mill is gone, but the mill pond can still be seen behind the present post office. Of the three stores, one is closed but standing, one is an apartment house, and one is long gone. During the 1910-1925 time span, an agricultural fair was held, sponsored by the White Hall Farmer's Club. The White Hall Fairground is now nothing more than an overgrown hilltop field barely accessible by a deeply rutted unpaved road., Like many other north Baltimore County towns and villages, White Hall's success was directly related to the success of the Northern Central Railroad. As railway businesses began to decline, White Hall began to revert to its origin as a quiet, peaceful, rural village. White Hall today comprises a strip less than a mile in length along Little Gunpowder Falls from Graystone Road to where Wiseburg Road ends at the old paper mill.