Sykesville is a little town in Carroll County, Maryland, United States. The town lies 20 miles (32 km) west of Baltimore and 40 miles (64 km) north of Washington D.C. The population was 4,436 at the 2010 census. BudgetTravel.com named Sykesville ‘Coolest Small Town in America’ in June 2016.

Prior to European colonization, the Place that is now Sykesville was used as a hunting arena by Native Americans from the Susquehannock and Lenape nations. By the late 1800s, many Europeans (predominantly from Germany and Scotland) had settled in Sykesville in leisure interest of cultivation and mining.

The land on which Sykesville sits started out as allocation of the 3,000-acre (12 km) Springfield Estate, a slave plantation owned by wealthy Baltimore shipbuilder William Patterson. In 1803, Patterson’s daughter Elizabeth, married Napoléon Bonaparte’s younger brother Jérôme, but taking into consideration she arrived in Europe as Jérôme’s bride, Napoléon refused to allow Betsy Patterson Bonaparte set foot on land. Napoléon refused the marriage of the two, and would not allow Elizabeth set foot upon France’s soil. He was Definite that Jerome marry into royalty, and sent Betsy back home. Denied by Napoléon, she was never dexterous to look her husband again, leaving her to lift their son alone in the United States. Upon the death of William in 1824, his son George Patterson family the estate. In 1825, George Patterson sold 1,000 acres (4.0 km; 1.6 sq mi) of Springfield Estate to his friend and thing associate, James Sykes.

A tract of land upon the Howard County side of the Patapsco River contained an old proverb and grist mill. In 1830 Sykes replaced it considering a newer mill and build up a five-story rock hotel, to accept care of railroad personnel and the tourist trade. In 1831 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) extended its main heritage to “Horse Train Stop”, since Sykesville had still to be named. Other businesses moved into the area, including two general stores, new mills, churches and a post office. In 1832 the town managed to gain control of a barn across the Patapsco River, the dividing line surrounded by Carroll and Howard County, but the citizens were irritated to reward the barn under threat of federal troops.^{[citation needed]}