Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jonathan Hager, a German immigrant from Pennsylvania, founded the town in 1762 under the name Elizabethtown, naming it after his wife Elizabeth Kershner. The city council changed the name to Hager's-Town in 1813, and the Maryland State Legislature officially endorsed the change the following year.
Hagerstown served as a staging area and supply center for four major Civil War campaigns between 1861 and 1864. In July 1864, Confederate Brig. Gen. John McCausland levied a ransom of $20,000 in cash and a large quantity of clothing from the city under orders from Lt. Gen. Jubal Early, as retribution for Union destruction of farms and livestock in the Shenandoah Valley.
Hagerstown earned the nickname Hub City because of its role as a major transportation and commercial crossroads. Interstates 70 and 81 intersect there, and CSX, Norfolk Southern, and the Winchester and Western railroads all pass through the city, making it the chief commercial and industrial hub for a tri-state area spanning Western Maryland, South Central Pennsylvania, and the Martinsburg Panhandle of West Virginia.
Hagerstown had a population of 43,527 at the 2020 census, making it Maryland's sixth-most populous incorporated city. The broader Hagerstown-Martinsburg metropolitan area had a population of 293,844 in 2020.
The Hagerstown Flying Boxcars are a professional baseball team in the Atlantic League that opened their inaugural season on the 25th of April 2024, on the road against the York Revolution. The team name was selected by fan vote from five finalist names and plays home games at Meritus Park, with their home opener held on the 4th of May 2024.
Tekesha Martinez became Hagerstown's first Black mayor in February 2023 after being unanimously selected by the city council to fill the vacancy left by Emily Keller, who resigned to join Governor Wes Moore's cabinet. Martinez had previously been elected to the city council in 2020 alongside Tiara Burnett, the first two Black council members to serve concurrently.