Savage is an unincorporated community and census-designated place located in Howard County, Maryland, United States, approximately south of Baltimore and north of Washington, D.C. It is situated close to the city of Laurel and to the planned community of Columbia. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 7,054. The former mill town is a registered historic place, and has many original buildings preserved within and around the Savage Mill Historic District. History The lands of Savage were first settled circa 1650. Colonel Henry Ridgley surveyed the land around Savage Mill and nearby Annapolis Junction in 1685, naming the tract "Ridgely's Forrest". Joseph White was the grandson of Peregrine White, the first child born of the Mayflower expedition. In 1734, he opened a gristmill on land patented as "Whites Fortune" and "Mill Land". The parcels were consolidated to become "Whites Contrivance". A rich vein of American industrial history lies in Savage. When the textile industry was in its heyday, Savage was an important manufacturing center, its mills harnessing the water power on the falls of the Little and Middle Patuxent rivers. The town was named for John Savage, a Philadelphia merchant with interest in a mill on the falls of the Little Patuxent. In 1822 he and his associates, the Williams brothers, chartered the Savage Manufacturing Company, purchasing of the White property for $6,666.67. The company produced sails for the clipper ships that sailed out of Baltimore Harbor, in addition to a wide variety of other cotton products. The cotton milling industry started in Maryland in the 18th century and flourished in the 19th century. Cotton was shipped cheaply from Southern ports and hauled overland by mule and oxen teams to the mills before rail transportation served Savage. In 1835 the Washington branch of the B&O Railroad was completed, and Savage Station was established on the line about a mile southeast of the present mill. A spur of the B&O was laid to the Savage factory in 1887, and it was at this time that the famous Bollman Truss Railroad Bridge was moved to its present site from another location. Originally built in 1852, it was one of about 100 on the B&O line. Beloved by railroad buffs, the iron truss bridge is the only one of its type in the world, and, along with the Savage Mill, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Savage