Biohazard Cleanup Near Avenel Olney, MD

Olney is an unincorporated census-designated place in north-central Montgomery County, Maryland, about thirteen miles north of Washington, D.C.

The village that became Olney was established in 1800 on land patented by Richard Brooke in 1763, and it was originally known as Mechanicsville or Fair Hill.

Olney takes its name from the Olney House, the home of Sarah Brooke and Dr. Charles Farquhar, admirers of the English poet William Cowper who named their house after the poet's hometown of Olney, England; the house still stands.

The early village was an artisans' center with a blacksmith, William Kelley's wheelwright shop, Canby's pottery factory, and Benedict Duley's store at its center.

St. John's Episcopal Church, established in Olney in 1842, still serves the community today.

During the Civil War, Union generals George B. McClellan and Ambrose Burnside led troops through Olney in 1862, and in 1863 Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart marched between 10,000 and 20,000 troops through the village and raided local farms of horses and crops.

Olney was the original headquarters of the federal Emergency Management Institute, founded in 1951 as the Civil Defense Staff College, which built a mock atomic-bomb-ruined training site called Rescue Street before relocating to Battle Creek, Michigan.

Olney remained largely agricultural until the 1960s, when Washington's suburban growth converted it into a mostly residential community.

The 2020 census counted 35,820 people in Olney, up from 33,844 in 2010 and 31,438 in 2000.

The 2020 census recorded 12,211 households and 12,466 housing units in Olney, with a median resident age of 43.0 years.