The historic Clarysville Inn goes up in flames early Wednesday as firefighters work to bring the blaze under control.
Flames escape from the front door of the structure, while the fire lights up the sky.
Pinto resident Naomi Nicholas, who with husband Wilbert Nicholas celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary in January, said that she is the last local representative of 11 generations of Clarys. An 1864 lithographic reproduction on file at the Allegany County Historical Society shows at least 10 hospital wards and a half-dozen other outbuildings surrounding the inn with an adjacent railroad when it was a U.S. Army General Hospital. According to Scott, and contrary to rumors at the time, no Civil War graves were covered by the construction of the Interstate 68 roadbed just south of the inn, which included the highest bridge over a road in Maryland at the time. Frostburg resident Doris Lancaster remembers well the old inn because in 1948 she married Joseph Lyons, who had bought the place from Taylor Sr. Those were wonderful years.