Chesapeake Beach Railroad Engine House, 21 Yost Place, Seat Pleasant, Prince George's County, MD

Significance: Built as the major service structure in the only yard and shop complex owned by the Chesapeake Beach Railway (in business 1897-1935), the engine house is a rare survivor of a once common service-building type long associated with steam-powered railroading. The engine house is also significant for its past association with a twenty-eight mile standard gauge railroad which was the first direct rail link between the nation's capital and the Chesapeake Bay. Coincidentally, the property's association with an ill-fated resort development scheme promoted by Otto Mears (developer of Colorado's Rio Grande Southern Railroad, among others) and financed largely by David Moffat (President, Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and president, Denver National Bank) also lends significance. With the recent demolition of the 1880's Wilmington and Northern roundhouse in Wilmington, Delaware, the five-bay, brick engine house at Seat Pleasant (the most modest of the six "roundhouses" which are known to survive in the Northeast), is a unique example of the type facility once constructed by short line railroads to service their own locomotives.
Survey number: HAER MD-49
Building/structure dates: 1902 Initial Construction