The San Marino name was imported from the Italian Peninsula – via Maryland. James De Barth Shorb, who founded the town (originally a ranch) in 1877, named it after his childhood home: the San Marino plantation in Emmitsburg, MD. Said plantation took inspiration from the Republic of San Marino, the tiny nation surrounded by Italy. According to an 1874 article in a Maryland newspaper (the Catoctin Clarion), Shorb’s father Dr. James Aloysius Shorb (1798-1867) was moved by the little country’s pastoral yet independent spirit and thought it a fitting name for his plantation. The Republic of San Marino owes its own name to Saint Marinus, who in the year 301 established a monastery where the country now stands. Our San Marino, incorporated in 1913, employs parts of the republic’s flag in its city seal. San Marino Avenue was named by 1889.
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