Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Yarrowsburg, MD

Yarrowsburg is a tiny unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Washington County, Maryland, at the foot of Elk Ridge on the west side of Pleasant Valley.

The 2020 census counted just 112 residents in Yarrowsburg, down from 133 in 2010.

The CDP covers only about 0.23 square miles, all of it land, at an elevation of about 643 feet.

Yarrowsburg is named for Aquila and Polly Yarrow, a free African-American couple who in 1825 bought a small log house on 1.25 acres at the corner of present-day Yarrowsburg and Reed roads.

Aquila Yarrow is believed to have worked as a collier for the Antietam Iron Works, whose furnaces consumed Elk Ridge's forests as charcoal; Polly Yarrow lived in the village named for them until her death on November 21, 1885.

Much of Yarrowsburg stands on former Antietam Iron Works land that was sold off in multi-acre lots after the iron works went bankrupt in the 1850s.

Yarrowsburg sits below Solomon's Gap, historically the only crossing of Elk Ridge; the steep, switchbacked road through the gap was abandoned in the early twentieth century, and the gap figured in Civil War strategy in the area.

Yarrowsburg is today a quiet rural village of single-family homes stretching along Reed, Kaetzel, and Yarrowsburg roads.

Yarrowsburg is served by ZIP code 21758.