Cumberland Maryland Tourism

Cumberland is in the far western, Appalachian portion of Maryland and is the county seat of Allegany County. The Downtown Cumberland Historic District, also referred to as the Downtown Cumberland Mall, is the main shopping and dining district for the city.

Cumberland is located at the eastern entrance to the Cumberland Narrows (or simply “The Narrows”), a water gap along Wills Creek that crosses the central ridge of the Wills Mountain Anticline at a low elevation between Wills Mountain to the north and Haystack Mountain to the south. Cliffs and talus of the two mountains’ Tuscarora quartzite caprock are prominent within the Narrows. These geological features provide Cumberland a western backdrop of the two mountains and the narrow gap between them.

The Cumberland Narrows acts as a western gateway from Cumberland to the Appalachian Plateau and the Ohio River Valley beyond. The Old National Road, now Alternate U.S. 40, passes through the Narrows, along with the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s main line between Baltimore/Washington and Pittsburg, now part of the CSX system, and a former line of the Western Maryland Railroad, now used by the steam- and diesel-powered excursion trains of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad.

A prominent rocky outcropping at the south end of Wills Mountain in the Cumberland Narrows is known as Lover’s Leap.