Lockerbie is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, southwestern Scotland. It lies approximately 75mi from Glasgow, and 20mi from the English border. It had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census. The town came to international attention on December 21, 1988 when the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed there following a terrorist bomb attack aboard the flight.HistoryLockerbie apparently has existed since at least the days of Viking influence in this part of Scotland in the period around AD 900. The name (originally "Loc-hard's by") means Lockard's Town in Old Norse. The presence of the remains of a Roman camp a mile to the west of the town suggests its origins may be even earlier. Lockerbie first entered recorded history in the 1190s in a charter of Robert de Brus, 2nd Lord of Annandale, granting the lands of Lockerbie to Adam de Carlyle. It appears as Lokardebi, in 1306.Lockerbie's main period of growth started in 1730 when the landowners, the Johnstone family, made plots of land available along the line of the High Street, producing in effect a semi-planned settlement. By 1750 Lockerbie had become a significant town, and from the 1780s it was a staging post on the carriage route from Glasgow to London.Perhaps the most important period of growth was during the 19th century. Thomas Telford's Carlisle-to-Glasgow road was built through Lockerbie from 1816. The Caledonian Railway opened the line from Carlisle to Beattock through Lockerbie in 1847 and later all the way to Glasgow. From 1863 until 1966 Lockerbie was also a railway junction, serving a branch line to Dumfries. Known as the Dumfries, Lochmaben and Lockerbie Railway, it was closed to passengers in 1952 and to freight in 1966.