Biohazard Cleanup Near Cascade Highfield-Cascade, MD

Highfield-Cascade is an unincorporated census-designated place (CDP) in Washington County, Maryland, that combines the two closely spaced villages of Highfield and Cascade, although most people simply call the whole community Cascade.

The 2020 census counted 1,082 residents in Highfield-Cascade, living in 447 households.

The community's population has edged slowly downward in recent decades, from 1,141 residents in the 2000 census to 1,112 in 2010 and 1,082 in 2020.

The CDP covers about 1.73 square miles of land at an elevation of roughly 1,303 feet in the foothills of South Mountain, in the northeastern corner of Washington County just south of the Pennsylvania state line.

Maryland Route 550 runs through Cascade, linking the mountain community with Thurmont to the southeast and the Pennsylvania border to the north.

Highfield-Cascade has its own ZIP code, 21719, which serves the Cascade postal area.

The Cascade community is best known as the home of Fort Ritchie, a former U.S. Army post whose grounds lie within the Cascade area.

Fort Ritchie began in 1926 as a Maryland National Guard training camp named for Governor Albert C. Ritchie, and during World War II it operated as Camp Ritchie, the Army's Military Intelligence Training Center, where thousands of soldiers, including many Jewish refugees from Europe, were trained in intelligence work.

After the war the post became a communications site supporting the nearby Raven Rock Mountain Complex, the alternate military command center sometimes called the Underground Pentagon.

Fort Ritchie closed on September 30, 1998, under the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure round, costing the Cascade area roughly 2,000 military and civilian jobs.