South Baltimore: In the Shadow of Industry

Curated by Baltimore Museum of Industry

Explore the industrial roots that shaped South Baltimore through this walking tour developed by the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI). Using artifacts and historic images from the BMI’s collections, this tour honors the workers who built Baltimore into a maritime powerhouse and examines the legacy that manufacturing, shipbuilding, and other heavy industries have left on the peninsula.

Enjoy this self-guided walking tour on foot (parking in the BMI’s lot is free to tour participants), by car, or from the comfort of your home. Share your thoughts on social media with the hashtag #BMIwalkingtour or tag @BMIatWork. Or, email your suggestions to info@thebmi.org.

Want to dive deeper into Baltimore’s industrial past? Check out the BMI’s online database (https://baltmusindustry.pastperfectonline.com) or YouTube channel (http://bit.ly/BMIyoutube) for more stories about the companies, industries, and workers who built Baltimore.

Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation

The Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation manufactured chemical components for many industrial applications. Quaker merchant Isaac Tyson Jr. established the company that became Allied Chemical in 1828, mining chromium ore and supplying chrome pigment…

Baltimore Museum of Industry

In the late 1970s, Mayor William Donald Schaefer proposed the creation of a museum to tell the story of Baltimore industry across two centuries of American history. Even before they the new museum found a building, Baltimore City officials organized…

Chesapeake Paperboard Co.

All that remains of the Chesapeake Paperboard Co. complex today is the water tower. The site is now known as McHenry Row, a 90,000 square foot mixed use development project that contains 250 luxury apartments, offices, and street level shops at the…

Domino Sugar

The Domino Sugar refinery (and its iconic red neon sign) is one of the last major working industries along Baltimore's inner harbor. Raw sugar arrives at the plant in giant ships and barges, and is unloaded and refined to become white, powdered,…

General Electric Apparatus Service Shop

The General Electric (GE) Apparatus Service Center did not support private consumers in maintaining their individual household appliances. Rather, this service center maintained large electrical transformers, electrical motors, and turbine engines…

General Ship Repair

General Ship Repair maintains the rich shipbuilding tradition so long associated with the South Baltimore neighborhoods of Federal Hill and Locust Point. Charles “Buck” Lynch founded the company in 1924, moved to this location in 1929, lost the…

Hercules Company

The Hercules Shipbuilding Company, housed in this brick building, was an active player in Baltimore’s maritime industry, building vessels for commercial and leisure use as well as wartime naval construction and repair. Jonathan and Eleanor LaVeck…

Jim Rouse Center of the American Visionary Art Museum

Built in the 1930s, the simple brick exterior housed an intricate timber framework to support the whiskey barrels, walls, and roof. After many years of vacancy, the building was given new life as part of the American Visionary Art Museum, which…

Key Highway Yards

The Key Highway Yards along the southern side of the Inner Harbor played a pivotal role in Baltimore’s shipbuilding industry from the 1820s until 1982. Passersby today see almost no traces of this industrial history at the upscale Ritz Carlton and…

Procter & Gamble Baltimore Plant

Today the site of Under Armour's world headquarters, five of these buildings used to house Procter & Gamble's Baltimore Plant: Process Building (1929), the Soap Chip Building (1929), the Bar Soap Building (1929), the Warehouse (1929),…