Maryland Route 284 is the designation for Hemphill Street, which runs between two intersections with
MD 285 in
Chesapeake City in southern
Cecil County. MD 284 heads north from MD 285 (Biddle Street) one block north of the
Chesapeake & Delaware Canal in the town of Chesapeake City. Immediately after leaving the town limits, the two-lane undivided highway curves to the west and reaches its northern terminus at MD 285 (Lock Street). MD 285 heads north to a junction with
MD 213 (Augustine Herman Highway). Hemphill Street was part of the original
Cecilton–
Elkton highway passing through Chesapeake City that was designated for improvement by the
Maryland State Roads Commission in 1909. The highway through Chesapeake City was paved as a concrete road in 1915. At that time, the main highway entered Chesapeake City from the north along Hemphill Street, crossed the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal on a one-lane bridge, turned west and crossed Back Creek on a wooden bridge, turned south onto Bohemia Street in
South Chesapeake City, turned west onto Third Street, and turned south onto George Street to leave the town. In the 1920s, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers widened, straightened, and deepened the canal. As part of their work, the agency constructed a
vertical lift bridge across the canal. Between 1924 and 1926, the Maryland State Roads Commission constructed approaches to the new bridge on both sides of the expanded canal, eliminating two narrow and dangerous bridges and four right-angle turns in Chesapeake City. The new route along George Street and Lock Street, which became part of US 213 in 1927 and is now MD 285 and
MD 537, entirely bypassed what is now MD 284. MD 284 was resurfaced with bituminous concrete in 1976, and its junction with MD 285 was changed from a tangent to the present orthogonal intersection in 1982.
References ==MD 308==