Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Cresaptown, MD

Cresaptown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Allegany County, Maryland, about 6 miles southwest of Cumberland along the North Branch Potomac River.

Before 1728, the Cresaptown site was a Shawnee village on the Potomac River, whose people hunted, fished and farmed maize in the rich soil of the river valley.

Cresaptown takes its name from the Cresap family of early settlers, descendants of frontiersman Thomas Cresap; tradition holds it was named for Joseph Cresap, who built a log home on the land in 1793.

Cresaptown's post office was established on December 22, 1800, making it one of the oldest postal communities in Allegany County.

Emanuel Custer, the father of General George Armstrong Custer, was born in Cresaptown in 1806 before moving west to Ohio and Michigan.

Before the 2010 census, Cresaptown was counted together with its neighbor as the Cresaptown-Bel Air CDP; as a separate CDP it had 4,592 residents in 2010.

The 2020 census counted 5,442 residents in Cresaptown, living in 1,041 households, with 1,129 housing units in the CDP.

Cresaptown hosts two Maryland state prisons, the North Branch Correctional Institution, a supermax facility, and the Western Correctional Institution, as well as the Allegany County Detention Center.

The prison population strongly shapes Cresaptown's census figures: in 2020 there were about 330 males for every 100 females in the CDP, and only 8.6 percent of residents were under 18.

The 372nd Military Police Company, the U.S. Army Reserve unit whose members were implicated in the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq, was based in Cresaptown.