Waldorf, Maryland General Assembly of Maryland by an act changed the name to "Waldorf" in honor of William Waldorf Astor (1848–1919), the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor (1763–1848), who was born in Walldorf, Palatinate, Germany. On July 29, 1908, the city of Plumb Valley in Waseca County, Minnesota, changed its name to Waldorf after Waldorf, Maryland. Once a tobacco market village, Waldorf came to prominence in the 1950s as a gambling destination after slot machines were legalized in Charles County in 1949. The boom lasted until 1968 when gambling was once again outlawed. Its subsequent substantial growth as a residential community began
John Jacob Astor III and Sarah Cox Todd (1761–1842). His maternal grandparents were Senator John Armstrong, Jr. (1758–1843) and Alida Livingston (1761–1822) of the Livingston family. He was also a nephew of occasional poet John Jacob Astor, Jr. (1791–1869). John Astor studied at Columbia University and the University of Göttingen, following which he went to Harvard Law School. He practiced law for a year, to qualify for assisting in the management of his family's immense estate, one half of which later descended to him. It was based on his paternal grandfather's achieving a monopoly in the lucrative fur trade in the early nineteenth century.