The Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad, built in 1844-1846 and incorporated in 1850, had reached Frostburg in 1852, and by 1863 the line ran from Cumberland through Mt. Savage to Frostburg and down George's Creek across the Potomac River to Piedmont, West Virginia, connecting it to the rich George's Creek coal region. The Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad was the county's most enduring short line, and its nearby Mt. Savage Railroad shops employed as many as 600 men until the shops closed after the Western Maryland Railway purchased the C&P in 1944. The C&P Railroad Depot at Frostburg, built in 1891, served as a passenger and freight station, but by 1973, under Western Maryland Railway ownership, it had closed and been abandoned. On the left stood the Tunnel Hotel, constructed about 1888 as a stopover offering inexpensive accommodations for travelers seeking a less fashionable hostelry; at times it had an unsavory reputation, and in the early 1920s during Prohibition, though officially vacant, the site maintained a large moonshining enterprise.