High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Oella is a small, historic mill town on the Patapsco River in western Baltimore County, Maryland, located between Catonsville and Ellicott City. It is a 19th century village of pristine, unpretentious, functional workers houses. Oella was founded in 1808 by the Union Manufacturing Company as a working class community for the company's mill workers. It was one of the earliest and most extensive cotton factories in the United States and used water-powered looms as early as 1819.