History of the parks Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross in the early 1820s on the plantation of Anthony Thompson near the village of
Madison in
Dorchester County on
Maryland's Eastern Shore. A year or two after she was born, Edward Brodess claimed Tubman, her mother, and her four siblings as an inheritance and took them away to his farm near
Bucktown, about to the east. After Brodess died in 1849, Tubman was at risk of being sold. Instead, she fled slavery and moved to
Pennsylvania, a state where slavery was outlawed. Over roughly the next decade, Tubman gained national fame by returning to Maryland repeatedly to lead her siblings and other slaves to freedom via what is now called the
Underground Railroad. The entire area remained in private hands until 1933, when the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge was established. This protected area encompassed much of the shoreline of the
Blackwater River, but did not protect areas such as the Thompson farm, Brodess farm, or other areas important to Tubman's life and the history of the Underground Railroad. On March 9, 2013—the 100th anniversary of Tubman's death—the State of Maryland and the
National Park Service broke ground for a new protected area within the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. This state-owned site lay entirely within the refuge's boundaries on
Maryland Route 335. The state designated the land a state park, and named it the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park. The Maryland Park Service and the National Park Service jointly provided funding to construct the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. On the same date, the State of Maryland unveiled the
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway, a route along an existing system of county, state, and federal roads which mirrored the route Tubman took while rescuing slaves. On March 25, 2013, President Barack Obama declared much of the area adjacent to the northern boundary of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge as a
national monument. A little under two years later, on December 19, 2014, Congress enacted H.R. 3979, which incorporated the Harriet Tubman National Historical Parks Act (H.R.664) as an amendment. This act established the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park as a unit of the National Park Service. The park boundaries are essentially the same as the national monument's, and protect nearly all the important sites associated with Tubman's life.
The visitor center Beginning in the 1970s, descendants of Harriet Tubman and her siblings began advocating for a state park to commemorate Tubman, her legacy, and her connection to rural Maryland. In 2007, Maryland acquired adjacent to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge for a park. The onset of the
Great Recession significantly hurt both state and federal budgets, stalling any move toward construction of the park. In 2008, Maryland and the National Park Service (NPS) entered into negotiations to jointly create the Tubman park. The two sides reached an agreement in 2009, after the National Park Service endorsed a plan to create national parks at Tubman-associated sites in Maryland and New York. The NPS plan required legislative approval from Congress, but none was immediately forthcoming. All the structures were designed to be
green buildings with at least a
LEED Silver certification. The buildings feature
geothermal heating and cooling,
green roofs,
permeable paving in parking areas and on pathways, and
solar-powered external lighting. Various construction and funding delays meant that the center did not open in 2013. That year, officials estimated completion in 2015. The 2015 deadline was missed as well, and officials estimated in February 2016 that the facility would finally open in March 2017. The final cost of the state park and visitor center was $22 million. ==About the center==