Towson (/ˈtaʊsən/)[3] is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States.

[5] The first inhabitants of the future Towson and central Baltimore County region were the Susquehannock people, who hunted in the area.

Their region included all of Baltimore County, though their primary settlement was farther northeast along the Susquehanna River.

[7] William's son, Ezekiel, opened the Towson Hotel to serve the growing number of farmers bringing their produce and livestock to the port of Baltimore.

Charles Ridgely completed the Hampton Mansion just north of Towsontown, the largest private house in America at the time.

Several tortured sets of negotiations occurred to divide the various assets of the city and the county, such as the downtown courthouse of 1805, the city/county jail of 1801 along the Jones Falls (at East Madison Street) and the almshouse, which was also jointly owned.

[9][12][15] The courthouse was subsequently enlarged in 1910 through additional designs for north and south wings by well-known and regarded city architects, Baldwin & Pennington.

From 1850 to 1874, another notable land owner, Amos Matthews, had a farm of 150 acres (0.61 km2) that—with the exception of the 17-acre (69,000 m2) largely natural parcel where the Kelso Home for Girls (currently Towson YMCA), was later erected —was wholly developed into the neighborhoods of West Towson, Southland Hills and other subdivisions, beginning in the middle 1920s.

On July 10, 1864, a 135-man Confederate cavalry detachment attacked the Northern Central Railway to the north in nearby Cockeysville, under orders from Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, of Frederick, Maryland.

The First and Second Maryland Cavalry, led by Baltimore County native and pre-war member of the Towson Horse Guards, Maj. Harry W. Gilmor, of Glen Ellen, attacked strategic targets throughout Baltimore and Harford counties, including cutting telegraph wires along Harford Road, capturing two trains and a Union general, and destroying a railroad bridge in Joppa, Maryland.

[19][23] The next day, a large federal cavalry unit was dispatched from Baltimore to overtake Gilmor's forces.

[27][28] During the summer of 1894, the Towson Water Company laid wooden pipes and installed fire hydrants connected to an artesian well near Aigburth Vale.

[31] The institution officially opened its doors on January 15, 1866,[32] however as time passed enrollment in the school grew exponentially, which rendered the facilities inadequate.

In 1910, the General Assembly formed a committee to oversee site selection, budget, and design plans for a new campus.

As the growth of Baltimore's suburbs became more pronounced after World War II, considerable office development took place in Towson's central core area.

Many of the large Victorian and colonial-style residences in the vicinity of the Court House were demolished in the 1980s and 1990s to make way for offices and parking.

[34]Prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, racially restrictive covenants were used in Towson to exclude African-Americans and other minorities.

The community is located immediately north of Baltimore City, inside the Beltway (I-695), east of I-83 and along York Road.

Its census boundaries include Pikesville to the west, Lutherville and Hampton to the north, Parkville to the east, and Baltimore to the south.

Towson University and Goucher College also operate bus services for their students, and the Collegetown Shuttle has several stops in the area.

After this initial construction, several spurs are envisioned to branch from the main loop, with several reaching as far south as the Baltimore city line.

Passenger service was discontinued on August 31, 1954, and the railroad line through Towson was finally abandoned altogether on June 11, 1958, leaving only the stone abutments where the tracks crossed York Road on a steel girder bridge.

[53] Towson features some of Baltimore County's largest shopping centers as well as other popular venues of interest.

The site includes the Ridgely's 18th-century Georgian manor house, gardens, grounds, and the original stone slave quarters.

Towson Town Center is Baltimore County's largest indoor mall, with four stories of shops and a parking garage.

Towson Place is a major shopping area near Joppa Road, Goucher Boulevard, and Putty Hill Avenue.

[54] Towson Place is next to Calvert Hall College High School, a Roman Catholic Lasallian Christian Brothers secondary school which moved in 1960 to its suburban location from its original site, founded 1845 in the city's Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood on Cathedral Street at West Mulberry Street.

It underwent several name changes before moving in 1915 to an expansive campus just south of Towson on the west side of York Road.

That school had served black residents of the county for several decades in the previously racially segregated public school system before the early 1960s, when the suburban county lagged behind fully integrating after the 1954 landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The school describes itself as offering "programs for students from three to twenty-one years of age who have been identified as developmentally delayed, intellectually limited, autistic-like, and/or multi-handicapped".