Have you been to the Visitor Center yet? Located at 731 Oklahoma Avenue, just off Main Street and opposite the McElroy parking lot, the historic Interlocking Tower Building houses the Post Office/Tourist Center on the first floor. Convenient, short-term street parking is right out front. Connie, Jean, Kathy, and Judy can help you with anything postal including priority mail, money orders, express mail, and international services, too. Special issue and commemorative stamps are available in sheets and booklets. Regular postage stamps can also be purchased in coils of 100. In addition to purchasing stamps and posting your packages, you can also get needed packaging products as well as assorted Town tourism products. Relax in the Visitor Center and browse the many interesting brochures relating to Sykesville’s history and current business offerings.

Hours of Operation  Monday   through Friday 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. 2:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Sunday CLOSED  Daily mail pick-up is 2:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Mail received after 2:00 p.m. will be postmarked the next business day.   The Post Office address is 731 Oklahoma Avenue, Sykesville MD 21784-7363 Phone:  (410) 552-9975 Email:  postoffice@sykesville.net   The drive up mail box, is located directly across the street (Oklahoma Avenue) from the Post Office.   History of the original building    The former B&P Junction interlocking tower, which from 1910 until 1988 served as a proud sentinel to the railroading just south of Baltimore’s Penn Station, and almost got lost to the wrecking, but afterwards, has found a new home. The town of Sykesville, Maryland, acquired salvageable parts to the structure and reconstructed it in 2000; it opened in November 2002 as a   Post Office and welcome/information center. The site for the tower is along Oklahoma Avenue, in front of a former Pullman sleeping car, not far from the old Sykesville train station.   A portion of the ground floor of the building is used as a place for visitors and residents to pick up brochures and information on town events and to view displays and photographs depicting local scenes. Another portion of the ground floor includes a unique contract postal business, which provides all types of mailing services to town residents, and businesses.   The top floor, where the operator once worked, is a 20-by-38 foot open area for use as a meeting space. Visitors may also use this space to get a panoramic view of the town through its 20 large windows. The second floor is also available for rental.   B&P, named for the old Baltimore & Potomac Railway, had the largest interlocking plant between Philadelphia and Washington. With 107 levers on its machine, it controlled part of the Northern Central branch, the switches into the old sleeper yard, the tracks leading to Calvert and Hilton stations, as well as main track moves between Penn Station and B&P Tunnel. Other action in its time included moves onto the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad directly across from the tower, and moves up the high-line behind the tower to the B&O diamond at North Avenue en route to Mount Vernon yard.   The Tower closed as an active office on July 14, 1988.   The building sat unused for a number of years, but it was in the way of construction of the Penn Station leg of Baltimore’s light-rail line. In 1995, the city of Bowie, Maryland, agreed to take the building for a park project, possibly as a boat house, but not as a tower museum since it already had one of those. B&P Tower’s top floor was dismantled (its base remained at the original site and remains there today) and its parts were stored in an unprotected area. Plans for the park project never reached fruition. When the town of Sykesville acquired the salvageable parts, it was noted that much of the rest of the original building had deteriorated too badly for use. An architect was hired to design the building patterned after the original and incorporating as much of the original material as possible.