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In 1840, the steam-powered Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad (A&ER) was built across a sparsely settled farming community that would later become Odenton. At the beginning of the Civil War, Union soldiers guarded this railroad line because it was the only link between the North and the nation's capital. Rail traffic through Baltimore had been disrupted by southern sympathizers, so supplies, mail and soldiers flowed through Annapolis and west Anne Arundel County to Washington. [ citation needed ] The town of Odenton, nicknamed "The Town a Railroad Built" by Catherine L. O'Malley, was formed in 1868 with the construction of the Baltimore Potomac (B&P) Railroad connecting Baltimore and Washington, D.C.