Maryland State Nickname: The Old Line State

Maryland gained this nickname in the 1920s during Prohibition. The 18th Amendment banned alcohol sales across the United States starting in 1920. Maryland refused to pass its own state enforcement laws for Prohibition. A newspaper editor named Hamilton Owens started calling Maryland the Free State because the state government would not add extra rules beyond federal law. The nickname became popular and many people still use it today, alongside long-standing symbols such as the Maryland state bird. Maryland residents liked the idea of their state standing up for individual choice.

This name comes from the Chesapeake Bay, which cuts through the middle of Maryland and forms much of the state's eastern border. The bay is about 200 miles long and contains thousands of miles of shoreline when you count all the rivers and inlets. Chesapeake is an Algonquian word meaning great shellfish bay. Fishing and crabbing in the bay have been important to Maryland's economy since colonial times. The Chesapeake State nickname appears in some writings from the 1800s but is less common than other Maryland names.

People called Maryland this because the Chesapeake Bay produced enormous numbers of oysters in the 1800s and early 1900s. Watermen harvested millions of bushels each year. Baltimore became a center for oyster packing and shipping. At its peak, Maryland supplied about half of all oysters eaten in America. Oyster harvests began dropping in the mid-1900s because of overfishing and pollution. The Oyster State nickname was popular when the oyster industry was at its strongest but is rarely used now.