Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Lonaconing, MD

Lonaconing is an incorporated town in Allegany County, Maryland, located along the Georges Creek Valley, and it is part of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Lonaconing was incorporated in 1890.

The town grew up around the Georges Creek Coal and Iron Company, a Baltimore and London syndicate that bought some 11,000 acres along George's Creek and built the Lonaconing Furnace in 1836-37.

According to the Maryland State Archives, the Lonaconing Iron Furnace was the first in the nation to successfully use bituminous coal and coke, rather than charcoal, to make pig iron; it produced pig iron from 1839 until 1855.

The Lonaconing Furnace was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and the Lonaconing Historic District was added to the Register in 1983.

The first stone house in the area, built in 1790 in Knapps Meadow just north of town, still stands as a private residence.

Lonaconing is the birthplace of Robert Moses "Lefty" Grove (1900-1975), the Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Red Sox.

Lefty Grove's 1941 American League Most Valuable Player award is the only MVP award not on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown; instead it is displayed at the George's Creek Library in Lonaconing.

Lonaconing is also the birthplace of Bishop John Gardner Murray (1857-1929), who became the first person elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church rather than succeeding automatically as the oldest bishop.

In the 2000 census, 16.1 percent of Lonaconing residents reported Scottish ancestry, and the town has been described as the most Scottish town in the United States.