All Stories: 492
Stories
Camden Station
Built between 1856 and 1857 at a cost of $600,000, Camden Station is a grand reminder of the long history of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Baltimore. Designed by Niernsee and Neilson with contributions by architect Joseph F. Kemp, the station…
Little Joe's
Long before places like Sports Authority or Dick's Sporting Goods opened their doors, Little Joe's on the northwest corner of Howard and Baltimore was selling everything from camping equipment and fishing gear to bikes and saddles. In…
Edna St. Vincent Millay at Emmanuel Episcopal Church
Past the brick rowhomes that have come to define Baltimore, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, established in 1854, sits on the corner of Read and Cathedral Streets. At street level, only the abrupt appearance of rubble stone from brick indicates that there…
Orchard Street Church
Constructed in 1882, the Orchard Street United Methodist Church is one of the oldest standing structures built by a Black congregation in Baltimore. The church was established by Trueman Pratt, a free Black man who was born into slavery in Anne…
707 South Regester Street
707 South Regester Street was built between 1760 and 1780 when Regester was known as Argyle Alley. Deed research tracing back to 1814 shows the house was owned by Joseph Brown until he sold it to Issac Stansbury in October of 1814. It was originally…
Saint Alphonsus Church
Designed by early Baltimore architect Robert Cary Long in 1845, the St. Alphonsus Church has been called "the German cathedral" for its Southern German neo-Gothic style. The church was originally established with a large German congregation…
Mayfair Theatre
Built in the late 1800s, the Mayfair Theatre, originally known as the Auditorium, was once considered one of the finest showhouses in Baltimore, if not the country. Though the building's ornate white stonework façade and grand marquee readily…
G. Krug & Son Ironworks and Museum
"There is hardly a building in Baltimore that doesn't contain something we made, even if it is only a nail," boasts Theodore Krug, heir to the oldest continuously working iron shop in the country. G. Krug & Son is one of the oldest companies in…
New Academy Hotel
As early as 1796, when the Golden Horse Inn stood at the crossroads of Franklin and Howard Streets, this spot was popular destination for Baltimore residents and visitors alike. The Inn, operated by W. Forsyth, was attached to a large stable to the…
Baltimore Arena
In 1961, the cornerstone of the Baltimore Civic Center (as it was then called) was laid, enclosing a time capsule with notes from President John F. Kennedy, Maryland Governor Millard Tawes, and Baltimore Mayor Harold Grady. Located on the site of…
Shipbuilders and Sea captains on Fell Street
During the War of 1812, Fell Street ran down a narrow stretch of land, with valuable water on both sides. William Price, who owned a shipyard at the east end of Thames, lived on Fell Street at 912 (built by 1802) and owned 903 to 907 (built 1779…
Broadway Market
During the War of 1812, Fell’s Point’s Market house, located at the site of the contemporary Broadway Market, served as an important gathering place. Twice a week, on market days, the streets teemed with shoppers, farmers, young boys, and the idle.…
Alexander Thompson House at Aliceanna Street
If some sea captains downplayed their financial success, others put it on display for all to see. In 1810, Alexander Thompson acquired the grand four-bay-wide house at 1729 Aliceanna (built c. 1780). Now altered, it was then 2½ stories tall. During…
Thomas Kemp House
Built around 1800, 1706 Lancaster Street was home to Thomas Kemp, a 24-year-old shipbuilder from St. Michaels on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, from 1803 to 1805 on the eve of the War of 1812. During the war, many regarded Kemp as the most skilled…
Leeke Academy
1627 Aliceanna Street, is a rare eighteenth century wooden house, built in 1797 and once home to "The Academy" run by schoolmaster Nicholas Leeke. Leeke's daughter, Mary, married a young sea captain, Henry Dashiell, who was a privateer…
South Bond Street
South Bond Street features a handful of nineteenth century wooden houses, including several built before the War of 1812. A relatively diverse population of European descent made up the neighborhood during the early 1800s. Martin Breitenoder, a…
713 South Ann Street
713 South Ann Street is a rare wooden house surviving within a row from 711 to 715 South Ann Street. Built around 1800, the 1804 City Directory lists Patrick Travis, a sea-captain, as the resident of the house at the time. The earliest deed located…
Caulker's Houses
The houses at 612 and 614 South Wolfe Street are two of the smallest and oldest wooden homes remaining in Fell’s Point. Ann Bond Fell Giles, widow of Edward Fell, inherited both properties following the death of her first husband. She remarried and…
Baltimore's Inner Harbor
In 1985, WJZ-TV local news cameras captured the view of the Inner Harbor from above as they documented the quickly changing landscape from the back seat of a helicopter. An aerial vantage point was nearly a necessity to take in the wide range of…
Hippodrome Theatre
Designed by noted Scottish American theatre architect Thomas Lamb, the Hippodrome Theatre opened in 1914 as one of the first theatres in the United States to operate both as a movie house and a vaudeville performance venue. Local theatre impresarios…
Davidge Hall
Davidge Hall, on the University of Maryland Medical School Campus, is the oldest medical facility building in the nation. The red brick structure is named after the school's founder and first dean, John Beale Davidge. It was designed by architect…
Charles Fish and Sons
With a gleaming black marble façade reading "Charles Fish and Sons Company" and Victorian brick arches above, the architecture of this building clearly points to a varied history. The surprising story of the building begins before the start…
The Baltimore General Dispensary
Doors opened at the Baltimore General Dispensary on Fayette Street in February 1912 and is the only surviving building designed for Baltimore's oldest charity,
The Baltimore General Dispensary was formed in 1801 on West Lexington Street to…
Appold-Faust Building
The Appold- Faust Brothers Building at 307-309 West Baltimore Street is one of a handful of surviving cast-iron fronted buildings in Baltimore and one of the only structures in the city that can boast two iron facades on front and back.
The…
Carl Sandburg at the Old St. Paul's Rectory
In 1934, Carl Sandburg wrote to Sally Bruce Kinsolving, "The years go by and I don't forget ever the long evening of song with you... at your house and faces and stories and moments out of that visit to Baltimore. I'm hoping to drop in…
Gertrude Stein on East Biddle Street
A novelist, playwright, poet, and essayist, Gertrude Stein is remembered as a literary innovator who fearlessly experimented with language in the early twentieth century. Today, Gertrude Stein is still renowned as a magnet for those who would…
John Dos Passos at the Peabody Library
Heralded as "the greatest writer of our time" by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, John Dos Passos spent time in and out of Baltimore from his birth in 1896 and lived here from 1950 until his death in 1970. An acclaimed biographer and novelist,…
Karl Shapiro at the Enoch Pratt Free Library
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Karl Shapiro was a true Baltimorean. As a young man in the 1920s and 1930s, Shapiro fed his literary ambitions with the city's rich cultural history; for instance, writing love poems at Fort McHenry where Francis…
Carroll Park
Carroll Park is Baltimore's third oldest city park and was originally part of the enormous Mount Clare plantation owned by Charles Carroll, Barrister in the mid-eighteenth century. The park was the site of Camp Carroll during the Civil War and,…
Housewerks
Tracey Clark and Ben Riddleberger purchased the 1885 gas valve building, historically known as the Chesapeake Gas Works, in 2005 to house their architectural salvage business—Housewerks. Riddleberger and Clark have since stabilized and restored the…