Mount Vernon Mill No. 3, renamed Mill Centre in the 1980s, represented in 1853 an important expansion to Mt.Vernon Company. Led by president and former sailor Captain William Kennedy, both were among fourteen U.S. mills that鈥攁s part of a huge textile conglomerate鈥攚ould capture up to 80% of the world鈥檚 demand for cotton duck in the early 1900s.
Mount Vernon Mill No. 3 was once part of the network of mills owned by the Mount Vernon Mill Company. The village of Stone Hill, adjacent to Mill No. 3, was built around 1845 to house the growing workforce. Families housed in the cottage-like stone duplexes were brought in from surrounding rural areas by mill owners, who also built a company store, churches, a boarding house, and a school.
By the 1880s, the combined mills employed 1,600 workers. Originally erected in 1853, Mill No. 3 was expanded in 1880 as demand for cotton duck increased. More housing followed, so much so that by 1888鈥攚hen Hampden and Woodberry were annexed by Baltimore City 鈥 development had exceeded well beyond the original boundaries of the mill villages.
A 1923 strike against an increase in hours with little increase in pay proved devastating for workers. Soon after, what was once Hampden鈥檚 major employer moved much of the mills鈥 operations to the South. The company began selling off properties, and Stone Hill families in turn were able to buy their homes from their former employers. A new generation of manufacturers moved in and repurposed the old textile mills. In 1974, Rockland Industries bought Mill No. 3, installed new looms, and produced assorted synthetic textiles.
By 1986, the mill was once again sold and redeveloped into a complex of artist studios, galleries, and commercial office space. Today, the site is home to more than seventy tenants of various occupations.
Erected in stages between 1890 and 1910, the former H.F. Miller & Son Company building consists of a 77,000 square foot brick manufacturing plant that occupies half of the city block bounded by 26th Street on the south, 27th Street on the north, North Howard Street on the west and Mace Street on the east. The complex incorporates the original, four story, "L" shaped brick building (1890-1895), a large three story brick addition (1910) and a two story brick stable that was remodeled as an open storage shed in 1928.
The H.F. Miller & Son Company building represented a significant era in the city's industrial history. In the late nineteenth century the company was one of the largest manufactures of tin boxes in the United States. Between 1890 and 1895 the company erected a state of the art industrial facility which incorporated new types of mechanization that greatly improved the efficiency of the can making industry. The company distributed its wares widely to Canadian, Mexican, European, African and South American markets, as well as in the U.S.
In 1953 the company ceased operations on the North Howard Street site. Between 1954 and 1985 the Miller Factory building was divided into several spaces. A series of businesses including the Commander Garment Company, Rombro Brothers, Ember Reuben and the Majestic Furniture Company occupied the building. During the 1990 census, the building served as the local headquarters of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Since the completion of the census, the building stood vacant until Seawall Development Company began renovations. Combining green construction and a focus on creating apartments for teachers, Miller's Court combines great historic preservation work with an interesting new approach to finding a new life for older buildings.
As the legal office for Maryland鈥檚 first female Black lawyer, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and her husband, Clarence Mitchell Jr., an NAACP lobbyist, this office served as a major site for civil rights organizing in Baltimore.聽
As the daughter of prominent Baltimore civil rights activist Lillie Carroll Jackson, Juanita Jackson was instilled with her duty to fight for civil rights at a young age. By the age of 18, she was leading the 鈥淏uy Where You Can Work鈥 picketing campaigns organized by the City-Wide Young People鈥檚 Forum in Baltimore. Through the Young People鈥檚 Forum, she also met her future husband, Clarence Mitchell Jr., who served as vice president. The two would later marry in 1938 and become a powerful force for civil rights in the country.聽
Juanita鈥檚 leadership was noticed by national civil rights leaders, and she was soon recruited to organize the national youth movement for the NAACP. Partially due to her vision and efforts, the national NAACP began to adopt methods like sit-ins and pickets rather than solely focusing on legal efforts.聽
Juanita Jackson Mitchell pursued a law degree at the University of Maryland and passed the bar in 1950, becoming the first Black woman in the state to become a lawyer. As a practicing lawyer heavily involved in civil rights, Juanita noted that 鈥渓ots of lawyers wouldn鈥檛 even speak to me鈥 I was a troublemaker.鈥
Juanita handled several important civil rights cases in Baltimore as an attorney. Her work led to a Supreme Court case that eliminated racial segregation in city and state beaches and swimming pools. She also worked with Thurgood Marshall to challenge school segregation in Baltimore, making it the first city in the South to desegregate following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
As a former student organizer, Juanita worked on the legal defense of student protestors in the 1960s, organizing sit-ins in the city and across the state, including defending those arrested in the protests in Cambridge, Gwynn Oak Park, and across Baltimore City. She also argued a case that ruled that police could not enter private homes without warrants in 1966, a law that remains on the books in Maryland today.
Juanita shared the office with her husband, Clarence M. Mitchell. He served as a key lobbyist for the NAACP, earning him the title of the 鈥101st Senator鈥 because of his influence in working towards key civil rights protections, including the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
This physical office was bought by Juanita in 1950 as she began practicing law. Because of her strong connections to the NAACP, this office was also used for the Baltimore NAACP鈥檚 legal work. After Juanita鈥檚 death in 1992, it remained in the ownership of Juanita鈥檚 son, Clarence Mitchell III, and was later used as offices for the Lillie Caroll Jackson Museum.
The Mitchell Family Law Office remains particularly valuable as the Baltimore NAACP鈥檚 historic office space was demolished in 2015. The site will be renovated as a hub for legal resources for the neighborhood, including housing the non-profit Rebuild, Overcome and Rise (ROAR), a center providing survivors of crime, violence, and harm with access to wraparound legal, case management, and mental health services.
Watch our Five Minute Histories video for more on Juanita Jackson Mitchell!
In the summer of 1976, Marc O鈥機arroll, a student and artist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), designed and installed the Mnemonic sculpture next to the campus鈥 Fine Arts Building. The sculpture, a collection of steel trees displayed in various stages of being chopped down, brought a unique appeal to an institution that seemed overly engrossed with rapidly expanding in size and scope at any cost necessary.
As a student at the university, Marc O鈥機arroll grew fond of a massive and ancient sycamore tree that was located behind the school鈥檚 Dining Hall. The sycamore had stood on the campus years before administrators had begun planning for the UMBC campus. However, university workers cut down the tree in 1976 to build a short driveway for trucks to pull into during the construction of the new University Center. When O鈥機arroll was commissioned by the university to construct a sculpture project, he decided to pay homage to the destroyed sycamore tree by building the Mnemonic. O鈥機arroll intended for the sculpture to stand as a memorial to all the trees that had been cut down to make way for new campus construction projects during the 1970s.
By welding his memories in steel, Marc O鈥機arroll created a dynamic sculpture that invites people to reminisce about nature and its surroundings. Although the artist is no longer at UMBC and neither is the massive sycamore tree, the Mnemonic carries on the memories of both.
Built in 1925, the eight-story tall Montgomery Ward Warehouse and Retail Store is one of nine monumental distribution centers built by the Montgomery Ward mail order company in cities around the United States.
Built in 1925, the eight-story tall Montgomery Ward Warehouse and Retail Store is one of nine monumental distribution centers built by the Montgomery Ward mail order company in cities around the United States. Founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward in Chicago, Illinois in 1872, the store sent catalogs (sometimes known as the "Wish Book") listing thousands of items, from clothing to tractors, to rural communities around the country. Designed by in-house company Engineer of Construction, W. H. McCaully, the building on Washington Boulevard is a testament to the importance of the company鈥檚 early success.
Montgomery Ward located its Atlantic Coast Headquarters in Baltimore largely due to the efforts of the city government and the Industrial Bureau of the Association of Commerce to attract new businesses鈥攁n early example of a public economic development program.
For nearly 60 years, Montgomery Ward was a major business in Baltimore. It employed thousands of people, sent out hundreds of thousands of catalogs emblazoned with the name Baltimore to customers throughout the eastern seaboard, and provided a unique retail option to generations of local residents.
Today, Montgomery Park has been adapted to a new use as offices. The new use also gave the building a new name, but saved the sign while replacing only two letters from the historic "Montgomery Ward" sign to preserve this icon on the southwest Baltimore skyline. The development won the Environmental Protection Agency's 2003 Phoenix Award.
Beginning in 1928 when it was built and for 84 years afterwards, the Monumental Life Insurance Company occupied what was ubiquitously known as the Monumental Life Building. In 2012, however, Monumental Life consolidated offices downtown and moved out of Mt. Vernon. The current owner, Chase Brexton Health Services, bought the building and in short order launched an extensive rehab project.
The 6-story building at Charles and Chase Streets had undergone numerous renovations to suit evolving needs, with major additions built in 1938, 1957, and 1968. Chase Brexton worked within the historic building envelope to create a health center for patients and staff.
The work included repairing the limestone exterior, even keeping and repairing the signature gold lettering spelling out 鈥淢ONUMENTAL LIFE.鈥 The ground floor, where the most extensive historic fabric remained, included marble walls and floors, which were restored, and imitation gold leaf ceiling, which was refinished using the original methods. An original wood-paneled 1928 Board Room was fully restored after having been subdivided into offices. The upper floors had been used as utilitarian office spaces and these were retained and transformed to meet the demands of serving as space for a health clinic. Within a short year, the iconic Mount Vernon Building had not only found a new owner, but also found a new life and promises to serve as a great asset for years to come.
The Moonlight Restaurant was Greek-owned. It was one of the first restaurants in which many Lumbee Indians arriving from the Jim Crow South could sit down and eat. Much of the planning for what would become South Broadway Baptist Church and the Baltimore American Indian Center took place in The Moonlight. However, the establishment was also known for fights and general discord, sometimes also attributed to the presence of Indians. The building was sold to Baltimore City in 1972. It is a house today.
Designed and built by George Frederick in 1870, the Moorish Tower remains an impressive sight for anyone visiting Druid Hill Park or driving on the Jones Falls Expressway. The structure stands over thirty feet tall with eighteen-inch wide solid marble walls. Inside, early visitors found a spiral iron staircase leading to an observation deck with an astonishing view of Jones Falls valley and the city beyond.
For decades, cyclists, pedestrians, and carriage riders enjoyed the tower as a place to rest and look out over the city. In 1910, visitors crowded into the tower, lined the walkway and covered the hillside to watch the dedication of the Union Soldiers and Sailors memorial. Later that same year, picnickers and families traveled to the Moorish Tower searching for the best vantage point to view an airship as it flew over Baltimore.
As time went on and the tower began to deteriorate, the Park commissioners debated dismantling the structure. Not only was the tower considered to be 鈥渋n the way,鈥 but the rusted iron staircase and crumbling walls were viewed as a safety hazard for those visitors hoping to still use it as an observation deck. Fortunately, the high cost of demolition and enduring affection for a local landmark encouraged the preservation of the Moorish Tower.
The city removed the rusted staircase, sealed off the entrance, and reinforced loose blocks and the base of the tower. The renewal of this iconic landmark has helped to encourage a broader revitalization of Druid Hill Park supported by residents, park advocates, and Baltimore City.
The Morgan Millwork Company, now known as the MICA Graduate Studio Center, is a product of Baltimore's once vibrant industrial development and a clear reflection of how industry has struggled in Baltimore over the past 50 years. J. Earl Morgan together with his cousin, Albert T. Morgan, incorporated the Morgan Company in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin in 1889, building on an enterprise first established by their fathers in 1868 to manufacture processed lumber and shingles. Here in Baltimore, J. Earl Morgan partnered with Charles A. Hanscom to start a Baltimore office for the Morgan Millwork Company in 1910. Within a few years, they purchased a property from Frank Ehlen on the south side of North Avenue just west of Maryland Avenue with the plan to construct a "sales distributing plant" for $60,000.
The Morgan Millwork Company remained on West North Avenue for nearly 60 years, selling and distributing a range of building products produced by Morgan Millwork, Andersen Window-all, Armstrong Cork and others, to contractors, lumber yards and building supply firms. In 1971, the company announced their plans to move from North Avenue to a new 90,000 square foot office in Baltimore County in a 1,000-acre industrial complex known as Chesapeake Park, developed by the Martin-Marietta Corporation.
Next to take over the building, was Max Rubin Industries, a Baltimore clothing manufacturer established by Max Rubin 鈥 a unique character with a personal passion for poetry and a reputation for employing people with disabilities. Over the years, Rubin wrote over three thousand poems on such varied topics as the 1952 Baltimore transit strike and the historic old Otterbein Church (located across the street from one of his factories) gaining him recognition as the Poet Laureate of Baltimore in 1947. His business grew from a modest start in the 1920s with a small chain of stores in West Virginia and Pennsylvania before he moved to Baltimore in the 1930s. By the 1970s had become one of the city's oldest clothing manufacturers. Regrettably, the loss of a large government contract and the challenges of the late 1970s recession brought an end to the business in 1983. On Christmas Day, a small classified ad appeared announcing an auction to sell of all the sewing machines, cutting tables and clothes presses at West North Avenue on January 9, 1983.
Even as Baltimore's struggling textile industry continued to slide, in 1984 this building again found a use as a factory for Jos. A. Bank Clothiers to produce suit coats at the rate of 5,000 a week. Jos. A. Bank has deep Baltimore roots, dating back to 1905 when 11-year old Joseph A. Bank got a job working for his grandfather, Charles Bank, cutting trousers in the family owned factory. The firm continued to produce clothes at Baltimore factories until they ended all production in the United States in the mid-1990s.
For the past fifteen years, the building has been occupied as studios for students at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The building is currently undergoing a transformation into a hub for MICA's graduate study programs with renovations led by architects Cho Benn Holback + Associates to create shared galleries, a lecture hall, meeting rooms, work and fabrication space, caf茅, and painting, mixed-media and photography studios.
In 1939, the trustees of Morgan College decided to sell the institution to the State of Maryland. The proceeds from that transaction were earmarked for the construction of a center for religious activities, the Morgan Christian Center (now Morgan State University Memorial Chapel), a parsonage, and an endowment. This effort preserved the religious roots of Morgan College (founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute) as they transitioned from 72 years as a private college to their future as a state institution. The building was designed by Towson-born African American architect Albert Irvin Cassell, FAIA who designed a number of buildings on the Morgan State campus and other historically black colleges and universities. Beginning in 1944, the director of the Morgan Christian Center was Rev. Dr. Howard L. Cornish鈥攁 1927 graduate of Morgan State College and math professor. Up until his retirement in 1976, Cornish lived in the parsonage and his home was known as a center of Civil Rights activities involving Morgan students, clergy and activists from throughout the Baltimore community. In 2008, the Morgan Christian Center trustees deeded the property to Morgan State University and the Center was renamed the Morgan State University Memorial Chapel, to reflect the diverse religious landscape on campus. That same year, the University named Dr. Bernard Keels director of the Chapel. Keels organized a group of volunteers, the Friends of the Chapel, who have supported an ongoing effort to restore the building and return it back into a essential part of the campus community. With additional support from Morgan State University students and faculty, the Memorial Chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
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On June 16, 1808, Elizabeth Bayley Seton arrived at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore on the same day that Bishop John Carroll, the first bishop in the Unites States, dedicated the seminary's newly built chapel. Elizabeth came to Baltimore from New York to set up a boarding school for girls. During her one-year stay in what is now the Mother Seton House, she took the vows of a Daughter of Charity, thus cementing her conversion and commitment to Catholicism. Following her start in Baltimore, Mother Seton, as Bishop Carroll dubbed her, went on to found Saint Joseph's Academy and Free School in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the first free school for girls in America, and the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, the first apostolic community of women in the United States.
The St. Mary's Spiritual Center, as the location is now called, is also the original home of St. Mary's Seminary, the first seminary in America. The seminary has trained a number of notables, including: Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, a Haitian immigrant who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence (the first African American Catholic community) and St. Francis High School; Father Gabriel Richard, who is called "The Second Founder of Detroit"; and Father Michael McGivney, who went on to found the Knights of Columbus in Connecticut.
Built in 1914 for Eastwick Motors, Baltimore鈥檚 first Ford dealership, 120 West North Avenue has been home to a surprising array of owners and occupants. After its days with Eastwick (a proud supporter of Amoco gasoline and its American Oil Company Baltimore roots), the building changed hands several times. Subsequent dealers sold cars from mostly forgotten manufacturers including Graham Page, Desoto, and Plymouth. By the mid 1930s, Kernan Motors owned the building and sold Nash, Willys, and Jeep vehicles. As North Avenue transitioned from a corridor for car dealerships, the building became vacant several times before finally becoming home to the Lombard Office Furniture company in the late 1970s. The business sold well-used metal office furniture. In 2005, the building became an arts center that included the Single Carrot theatre, a gallery, and studios. The name of the space came about by creatively deleting letters from the existing signage. So, 鈥淟ombard Office Furniture鈥 became 鈥淟oad of Fun鈥 Gallery. Unfortunately, 120 West North Avenue required major renovations to meet the necessary building codes. BARCO, an arts-based development group, acquired the building in 2013 and began making the necessary changes in order to reopen as a hub for the arts. In 2014, the Baltimore Sun quoted project director Amy Bonitz on the unique historic elements of the building:
"The beauty is nobody has messed up the interior. Some of the wonderful features we've uncovered include the original [auto] showroom with a mezzanine where the managers could oversee the work happening throughout the first floor, including the rooms where the sales agreements were finalized.The front facade also contains beautiful leaded-glass windows with large, pivot windows that will be fully restored. The third floor is also a wide-open space with large skylights where mechanics used to work on cars. We will be saving and preserving the old freight elevator that brought the cars up to the upper floors for servicing as well."The Motor House held a grand reopening in January 2016 with space for performances, artists, a cafe, and gallery.
In 1872 Baltimore鈥檚 historic Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church purchased land in Southwest Baltimore to establish a place for Black families to bury their dead. Today it is called Mount Auburn Cemetery. Covering approximately 32 acres, it was originally named 鈥淭he City of the Dead for Colored People.鈥 It is the oldest Black cemetery in Baltimore. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated a historic landmark by Baltimore City. Mount Auburn has the interred remains of over 55,000 people, including community leaders, formerly enslaved people, and Black Civil War veterans. It is owned and operated by the Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church.
Its many famous occupants are too numerous to list here, but a few stand out. For example, there lie the remains of the boxer Joe Gans (1874-1910), the first African-American to win a world boxing championship and a lightweight boxing title. He is considered by many to be the greatest lightweight boxer of the 20th century. He was also the inspiration for an early short story by Ernest Hemingway called 鈥淎 Matter of Color.鈥
John Henry Murphy (1840-1922) is also buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery. He was born into slavery in Baltimore and became free at the age of 24. After fighting in the Union Army in the Civil War, Murphy became active in education for African-American children. In 1892 he founded the Afro-American newspaper, which became the largest Black newspaper on the East Coast by the time of his death in 1922. In 2022, the Baltimore Afro-American is still published weekly. It is the longest running family-owned African-American newspaper in the United States.
Also interred at Mount Auburn is Lillie May Carroll Jackson (1889-1975), who is known as the mother of the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1930s she ran multiple grassroots campaigns to end racial segregation, boycott racist businesses, register Black voters, equalize pay between Black and white teachers, and to pass Baltimore鈥檚 Fair Employment Practices law. She headed the Baltimore NAACP Chapter from 1935 to 1970.
Over the 150 years of its existence, the cemetery has often fallen into disrepair and has been the scene of gruesome situations. In 1918, 175 Black victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic lay unburied on its grounds for weeks as the usual laborers refused to bury them. The Mayor had to call in soldiers from Camp Meade to bury the bodies using army trucks and trenching machines. In 1930, the Afro-American reported that grave diggers working on the site accidentally unearthed skulls, bones, and caskets of the dead. Although it remained a popular burial ground, it has in recent decades again become dilapidated.
The cost of maintaining the graveyard is $25,000 a year. In 2012, Mount Auburn was cleaned up and rededicated by the State of Maryland with funding from the Abell Foundation, and with much of the work done by 40 state prison inmates. In recent years the 鈥淩esurrecting Mount Auburn Cemetery鈥 project has documented the names of 55,000 buried there and continues to work on identifying gravesites.
The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the Baltimore National Heritage Area.
Mount Clare is considered to be the birthplace of American railroading. It holds the oldest passenger and freight station in the United States and the first railroad manufacturing complex in the country.
Mount Clare is considered to be the birthplace of American railroading. It holds the oldest passenger and freight station in the United States and the first railroad manufacturing complex in the country. The first Mount Clare Station building was erected in 1830 after Charles Carroll deeded the land to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. In May of that year, the first railroad was completed to Ellicott's Mills (now Ellicott City) at a distance of about 13 miles. The first passenger car to make the trip was the horse-drawn "Pioneer" which made the trip on May 25, 1830 in one hour and five minutes. On August 28 of that year, the first American locomotive, "Tom Thumb", made its debut run on the same route, but took ten minutes longer than the horse-drawn Pioneer. The manufacturing complex at Mount Clare became a leading innovator in locomotive technology. Phineas Davis and Ross Winans created the first commercially practical coal-driven American locomotives at the site. In 1850, the B&O erected an ironworks where the first iron railroad bridge was designed. The circular roundhouse was completed in 1884 and was at the time the largest circular building in the world. The Mount Clare Station is now part of the B&O Railroad Museum. The museum has the largest collection of 19th-century locomotives in the United States. Visitors can take take a train ride on the first mile of railroad tracks laid in the country.
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The Mount Royal Reservoir was once an essential element within an extensive system of waterworks built to deliver clean drinking water to a growing, thirsty city. In 1857, the Baltimore City Council passed an ordinance to provide additional water to Baltimore City and soon started construction on a $1.3 million system of dams, conduits and reservoirs along the Jones Falls鈥攖he more affordable option when compared to a $2.1 million plan for diverting water from the Gunpower Falls. In 1858, what was formerly called Swann Lake was dammed up to become what we now know as Lake Roland. A massive conduit was built connecting it to the Hampden Reservoir. Finally, a conduit was excavated going south to the Mount Royal Reservoir just north of the city boundary and the waterworks were fully operational by 1862. By 1863, just over half of the city鈥檚 38,881 buildings received water that was delivered from the Mount Royal Reservoir. The site of the Mount Royal Reservoir lay just west of the Northern Central Railroad tracks on the former site of the Mount Royal Mill property. The reservoir featured a large central fountain, similar to the one in present day Druid Lake, that shot a stream of water bubbling high into the air. Even before construction was complete, however, Baltimore residents discovered that this new source was once again insufficient for the growing population of the city and the large number of Federal troops stationed in Baltimore or passing through during the Civil War. During hot and dry periods of the summer the system would run short of supply and the Water Department鈥檚 response was to try to cut down demand by raising the price of water. The city鈥檚 poor living in low-lying neighborhoods and forced to use backyard pumps, were hit the hardest by the water-borne diseases that spread as a result. Sewage from cesspools leached into neighborhood wells and polluted the springs of the city, increasing the demand for clean water from the mains. Severe droughts from 1869 through 1872 finally forced the city to seriously consider the Gunpowder as a permanent water source. In 1910, the Mount Royal Reservoir was abandoned by the City Water Department and transferred to the Parks Department. In 1924 the City Park Board demolished the reservoir and removed 50,000 cubic feet of earth, turning the site into parkland. In 1959, the property was cut in two by the entrance to the new Jones Falls Expressway off of North Avenue. Today, you can still see the monumental entrance posts to Druid Park that stand at the base of the reservoir鈥檚 original location as you drive past on North Avenue.
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Built around 1842, the Mount Vernon Club is one of the oldest homes on Mount Vernon Place.
Previously known as the Blanchard Randall House and the Tiffany-Fisher House, the home was built by William Tiffany, a wealthy Baltimore commission merchant. The building is a fine example of the Greek Revival architectural style and set a high standard for the new homes being built around the Washington Monument.
In 1941, The Mount Vernon Club, previously located across the street at 3 West Mount Vernon Place merged with The Town Club in the Washington Apartments and purchased the property, then home to Mr. Blanchard Randall, to serve as their club house. The Club has remained at the property through the present.
Mill No. 1 sits on the site of Laurel Mill, a late 18th-century flour mill originally owned by prominent businessman and abolitionist Elisha Tyson. In 1849, the newly chartered Mount Vernon Company built a textile mill on the site. Mill No. 1 stood at the threshold of a burgeoning textile empire that would control most of the world鈥檚 cotton duck production, a heavy canvas used primarily for ship sails.
The textile mill and neighboring village Stone Hill shared a close relationship well into the 20th century. Residents renting company-owned housing in Stone Hill were required to be employed in the mill to live there. The mill's bell called workers to the factory floor for their twelve hour shifts. Mill boss David Carroll lived in a mansion at the top of the hill overlooking the village and mill his wealth built. The extant mansion later became the Florence Crittenton Home.
In the mid-1800s, about 400 men, women and children鈥攕ome as young as eight years old鈥攚orked in and lived next to the mills. The company expanded in 1853 with the construction of Mill No. 3 across the street. In 1855, the Mt. Vernon Company controlled six mills in the Jones Falls Valley from Mt. Washington to Remington, and established adjoining villages that would grow into the neighborhoods of Hampden and Woodberry. When Mill No. 1 burned in 1873, it was replaced with the larger factory that stands on this site today. Inside the mills, the cotton looms made a lot of noise, and dust from the cotton was always in the air. Excess cotton had to be swept off the floor and cleaned off the looms to prevent fire. Workers heard the constant loud humming of the looms and breathed in the cotton dust. An entire paycheck could go to rent for the company houses and toward groceries purchased from the company store.
In 1899, area mills merged to form the Mount Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Company, at the time the world鈥檚 foremost manufacturer of cotton duck, with mills from South Carolina to Connecticut, and a board of directors based out of New York City. By 1915, the Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Company broke apart and was reformed as Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Mills, which controlled mills in Hampden and Woodberry, South Carolina, and Alabama, and employed about 2,200 workers locally. Production boomed during World War I and workers leveraged demand to gain a 10 percent wage increase, a reduced 55 hour work week, and cleaner facilities.
Demand for cotton duck dropped immediately after the war, and management cut wages by one-third and increased hours. Tensions within the company culminated in a 1923 strike, when 600 workers voted to reject the offer of a 54-hour work week and 7.5 percent pay increase and demanded a 48-hour work week with a 25 percent pay increase. Despite support from local clergy and the Textile Workers Union of America, the workers were forced by necessity to return to the mills. The company began to sell off its housing and move its operations to Alabama and South Carolina where labor was cheaper and less organized. During the Great Depression, many mill workers were laid off. Many went on welfare. Others, however, refused to go on welfare, and searched for additional jobs to support themselves. At this time most workers made between five and seven dollars per week and worked ten hours a day.
World War II created new demand for canvas. Tarps, rope, netting, mailbags, tents, and stuffing (made from cotton bits called 鈥榮hoddy鈥) were all in demand from the military. Synthetic fabrics, which required bricking up the mill's windows to control humidity levels, emerged as new products. Many people from the South came to work in the mills at this time. After the war, production declined, never to regain its earlier levels. The Mount Vernon Company finally closed its Baltimore mills and moved all operations to North Carolina in 1972.
Some industry persisted in the mill buildings. Life-Like Products, a maker of model train sets and styrofoam coolers, was one. The international textile firm Rockland Industries, with origins upstream, used Mill No. 3 to store its textile supply after the Mount Vernon Company left. In 2013, Mill No. 1 was redeveloped by developer Terra Nova Ventures and now includes apartments, office space, a restaurant, and an event venue. Although they no longer function as mills, these buildings continue to serve as places of housing, food, and work within Hampden.
Completed in 1872 as a 鈥淐athedral of Methodism,鈥 the Norman-Gothic Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church was a signature achievement for the noted Baltimore architects Thomas Dixon and Charles L. Carson. It was also at first an immense source of aggravation to its neighbors. By the 1870s, Mount Vernon had become the place to live for Baltimore鈥檚 elite, and Mount Vernon Place with the Washington Monument was the central jewel of the community. The church鈥檚 heavy presence off the north park, green serpentine stone amidst the Baltimore brick and more subdued color palate, and steeple that reached nearly to the top of President Washington鈥檚 head sparked a great deal of angst. The fact that the church replaced the house where Francis Scott Key passed away did not help sooth the neighbors. The house was the home of Key鈥檚 daughter and her husband, Elizabeth Phoebe Key and Charles Howard. After its early days, however, the church has become a central and admired part of Mount Vernon Place. Architecturally, it was built of striking green serpentine stone, as well as buff, olive and red sandstone. Architects Dixon and Carson embellished it with polished granite columns and carved designs taken from nature. Its many gothic details of flying buttresses, a tower, and arches are purely esthetic in function, as the building is constructed over an iron framework. There are even grotesque stone faces above the windows on the west front (three full cut, two in profile) said to be likenesses of prominent persons living at the time the church was built. On the inside, the church is notable for its iron supporting columns, carved wooden beams, and stained glass cross window over the pulpit. In addition to its architecture, the church鈥檚 congregation has made its mark on Baltimore as well. The group began in a building on Lovely Lane (intersecting today鈥檚 Redwood Street downtown) and is credited with launching the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States in 1784. The current church on Mount Vernon Place is the congregation鈥檚 fourth home. In addition to its spiritual work, the congregation has provided innumerable secular services to Baltimore. In World War II, the church provided beds, food and entertainment to servicemen returning from the front. Beginning in the 1970s, they led efforts to help runaway teenagers and victims of drug abuse, and began a service organization to engage young Baltimoreans in helping their city. The congregation today continues its service to Baltimore in many ways, including opening to tours and the curious public.
Mt. Washington Mill鈥攈istorically Washington Mill, part of Washington Cotton Manufacturing Company鈥攊s one of Maryland鈥檚 earliest purpose-built cotton mills. In the early nineteenth century, the Napoleonic Wars and the Embargo Act disrupted imports and created new demand for locally-made cotton goods. When the nearly four stories tall stone Mt. Washington Mill began operation in 1810, it could fill this new market. Located near the center of the complex, the mill was first powered by the current of the Jones Falls. Indentured servants, primarily young boys, worked to make fabrics like ginghams and calicos. The operation grew and the mill began hiring more men, women and children as workers. Most lived nearby in Washingtonville, a company town that, by 1847, included a company store and nearly forty homes between the factory and the railroad tracks. Workers were called to their shifts by the sound of the bell ringing in the mill's cupola. The mill passed through several hands before 1853 when industrialists Horatio Gambrill and David Carroll acquired the facility. The pair had been quickly erecting textile mills in the Jones Falls Valley for the production of cotton duck, a heavy canvas used primarily for ship sails. By 1899, it had become part of the Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Company 鈥 a large conglomerate of textile mills comprising fourteen sites in Maryland and beyond 鈥 which would eventually control as much as 80% of the world鈥檚 cotton duck production until 1915, when the conglomerate split apart. Washingtonville the mill village was soon overshadowed by the residential suburb of Mt. Washington, established in 1854 on the other side of the tracks. Mt. Washington became a fashionable neighborhood for middle-class Baltimoreans looking to get out of the city鈥擝altimore remained easily accessible by train. Life in Mt. Washington was much different than life in Washingtonville. Children were under little pressure to drop out of school to work in the mills to support their families, homes were spacious and built to fine standards, and residents had access to plenty of leisure activities and entertainment, such as at the "Casino" where all sorts of exhibitions and games and held. In 1923, Washington Cotton Mill was purchased by the Maryland Bolt and Nut Company and repurposed for the production of metal fasteners like bolts, nuts, screws, and rivets. Industrial buildings were added to the campus and existing ones were outfitted for working steel. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes wrecked much of the industrial campus and in response, the factory was sold to Leonard Jed Company, a manufacturer of industrial supplies. It was sold again in 1984 to Don L. Byrne, a manager at the plant, before being redeveloped by Himmelrich Associates in the 1990s for office and commercial use. Washingtonville never underwent the same revitalization. The village was largely razed in 1958 to make way for the Jones Falls Expressway leaving only a single duplex house still standing today.
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In 2014, a new species appeared in the Baltimore Harbor. With 5 feet tall googly eyes, a playful persona, and a steady diet of harbor detritus, Mr. Trash Wheel is cleaning up the harbor one swallow at a time.
The brainchild of local inventor John Kellet who founded Pasadena, Maryland-based company Clearwater Mills LLC, Mr. Trash Wheel is officially known as a 鈥渨aterwheel powered trash inceptor.鈥 He was given his name and persona by the Waterfront Partnership for Baltimore as part of their Healthy Harbor initiative. Mr. Trash Wheel hit the harbor in 2014 and has picked up over 16 tons of trash and litter since then.
Mr. Trash Wheel uses the stream current and solar power to turn its giant wheels making him the world鈥檚 first sustainably powered trash interceptor. He waits for trash moving downstream to come to him, carried by the wind and rain during storms when trash flows unfiltered into our streams and into the Baltimore Harbor. The trash is then funneled by a containment boom to the front of the device where a series of rakes scoop it up and load it on to a conveyor belt. The belt moves the trash into a dumpster that sits on a floating barge in the back of the device. When the barge is filled with trash, it is removed and replaced with an empty barge so the process can continue.
Today, there is a Trash Wheel family comprised of working trash wheels in other city communities. Professor Trash Wheel works at Harris Creek in Canton. Captain Trash Wheel patrols Masonville Cove in South Baltimore. Gwynnda, the Good Wheel of West keeps the mouth of the Gywnns Falls near I-95 clean. And Mr. Trash Wheel makes his home at the mouth of the Jones Falls. The trash wheels collect over one million pounds of trash per year, including a guitar, a full-sized beer keg, and even a ball python!
The Munsey Building was erected by and named after the publisher, Frank Munsey, who had purchased the Baltimore News to add to his publishing empire. Though he wanted the paper, he did not like the five-year old building that housed it. So, he had a new one erected more to his liking. Completed in 1911, the newspaper's new offices were designed by the local architectural firm of Baldwin & Pennington, together with McKim, Mead & White of New York. The Munsey Trust Company, which eventually became the Equitable Trust Company, opened on the ground floor in 1913. The paper was eventually bought by William Randolph Hearst, became the Baltimore News-American, and moved a few blocks away. The building鈥檚 most recent purpose is to serve as loft apartments that are helping revitalize downtown Baltimore. The renovation of the Munsey included keeping the grand entrance way, with its marble floor, elevators, and grand front door, as well as cleaning and repairing the exterior. 糖心影视 recognized the conversion with a preservation award in 2004.
Located in Baltimore鈥檚 Brewers Hill neighborhood, the National Brewing Company building, affectionately known to locals as the "Natty Boh" building, has been standing since 1872. The company was then known exclusively for its National Premium beer. In 1885, National Brewing began brewing its flagship National Bohemian beer, Natty Boh, and a hometown favorite was born. Production of Natty Boh continued on this site, with the exception of the Prohibition years, until 1975 when the company was bought. The brewery was shut down and the brewing operations were moved to Wisconsin.
Today the old brewery has been converted to office space and is part of the Brewer's Hill complex. The complex includes multiple breweries that were home to the Gunther, Schaefer, Hamm鈥檚, and, of course, Natty Boh labels. Also, it is where the nation鈥檚 first 鈥渟ix pack鈥 was invented in the 1940s.
The Brewers Hill neighborhood that surrounds the 27-acre brewery site was developed between 1915 and 1920 and is replete with rows of brick homes and marble steps.
Alexander Fruman emigrated to Baltimore from Eastern Europe in 1917 with few possessions. Among them was a handsaw that helped him start a business building wooden windows and doors in 1919, in a shop at the corner of Stiles Street and S. Central Avenue near the Little Italy neighborhood.
According to family legend, when prohibition began the following year, Alexander sold mauls to the Bureau of Prohibition agents, which were used to break down bootleggers鈥 doors who were selling illegal alcohol. Sensing an additional business opportunity, Mr. Fruman also offered his services at this time to these same local bootleggers who needed their doors reinforced with steel plating to ward off the Prohibition agents.
As the business grew, Alexander鈥檚 son Isadore joined the business and more outdoor storage space was needed. Additional property was soon purchased in Little Italy at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Albemarle Street and another parcel was rented in the rear of Pier 6 on Pratt Street 鈥 commonly known today as the site of the Pier 6 Concert Pavilion. In 1960, National Lumber was still growing and moved again to the corner of Elliott Street and S. Linwood Avenue in Canton. This had previously been the location of the P.M. Womble Lumber Co., an industrial supplier of lumber and timbers. In 1969, National Lumber was notified by the City of Baltimore that their property in Canton was in the path of the proposed East-West Expressway, and was likely to be seized through eminent domain, necessitating another move. Even though the expressway was never built, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise for National Lumber as it allowed them to move in 1970 to their current six-acre facility at Pulaski Highway and E. Monument Street in East Baltimore (the former home of the Harry C. Weiskittel Co., manufacturers of the Real Host line of gas ranges).
The present-day office on Pulaski Highway features a collection of pictorial memorabilia chronicling the company鈥檚 history-鈥搃ncluding a horseshoe that some employees speculate came from the company鈥檚 first horse, which was purchased from the Baltimore City Fire Department as the city transitioned from horse-drawn to motorized equipment. No one with the fire department at the time thought to inform the horse鈥檚 new owners that he might suddenly bolt at the sound of fire engine bells. As luck would have it, the first time the horse was being used for a delivery a fire engine raced by and he took off after them鈥nd left an order of over 40 doors scattered all over E. Baltimore Street!
While the company鈥檚 initial focus was in doors and windows, National Lumber has diversified over the years and now proudly offers 鈥淓verything for Building.鈥 Their customer base today includes homeowners, contractors, property managers, deck builders, developers, and commercial accounts.
National Lumber鈥檚 longevity has been aided by its membership in the Lumbermen鈥檚 Merchandising Corporation (LMC), an umbrella organization comprised of over 380 independent lumber and building material dealers from throughout the United States. Established in 1935, LMC is built on a cooperative business model that negotiates buying opportunities for its member firms. Membership is by invitation only and includes a rigorous approval process.
Over the years National Lumber has supplied materials to help build a variety of well-known projects that include scaffolding used in construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, as well as the platform Pope John Paul II used when he stepped off the train for his 1995 visit to Baltimore鈥檚 Camden Yards.
National Lumber is now in the hands of the fourth and fifth generations of the Fruman family, Arnold and his sons, Kevin and Neal. While they no longer build windows with sash weights and pulleys, they do offer design consultations and almost anything needed for the building of a home--inside and out. As their slogan says, "Everything for Building."
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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 north on Howard Street and was one of dozens of taverns combinations in Baltimore that served the area's many travelers.
By 1857, the old Golden Horse Inn had been substantially remodeled and its new proprietor, Mr. Daniel McCoy, added two additional stories and renamed it the Franklin Hotel. McCoy's enterprising successor, William Delphy, started his empire next door at the Golden Inn Stables in 1860 and soon opened the Swan Hotel at Franklin and Eutaw Streets, eventually taking over McCoy's Franklin Hotel. The building was renamed the Academy Hotel in the early 1880s, perhaps taking inspiration for the new name from the Natatorium and Physical Culture Society (now the site of the Mayfair Theater) built next door in 1880. By the time of Delphy's death in 1898 the Baltimore Sun remembered him as "one of the best-known hotel proprietors in Baltimore."
As wagon trains and turnpikes were replaced by the railroads, many inns and taverns along Howard Street came down in favor of new banks and theaters. In 1902 when James L. Kernan announced plans to build the Congress Hotel next door, the Academy Hotel was threatened with demolition as many speculated that plans for the new building might become considerably larger if neighboring properties, including the Academy, could be acquired at a reasonable cost. Despite threats, the Academy, widely regarded as a quaint little hostelry and a landmark in the theatrical world, remained in operation for decades. It was renamed the New Academy Hotel after 1915 and became the Stanley Hotel in the early 1920s.
Unfortunately, by the beginning of the 2000s, the building was abandoned. A ghost of the painted New Academy Hotel could be seen on the crumbling western wall of the brick structure. Ultimately, the city identified serious structural issues with the building and it was demolished in 2016.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore established New Cathedral Cemetery on forty acres of the old "Bonnie Brae" country estate in 1869. The church spent seventeen years moving bodies and headstones from the 1816 Cathedral Cemetery at Riggs and Fremont Avenues and, in 1936, moved hundreds more from St. Patrick鈥檚 Cemetery on Orleans Street.
Among the scores of well known locals buried on the grounds are Clarence H. 'Du' Burns, Baltimore's first black Mayor, Sister. Mary Antonio of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, and four former Orioles players (all in the Baseball Hall of Fame).
The church on Wildwood Parkway, now used as the New Covenant United Methodist Church, was originally built for the Central Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1930.
The church's original congregation was organized around 1866 and, in 1876, erected a sanctuary on Edmondson Avenue near Harlem Park. In 1926, the church purchased a property on the street then known as Wildwood Driveway and, in November 1929, sold the building on Edmondson Avenue and announced plans to begin building a three-story Sunday school designed by architect Guy E. Gaston.
Construction on a new church began in May 1930 with a cornerstone laying ceremony attended by three hundred people. The building was estimated to cost $65,000. Around 1954, the congregation merged with the Summerfield Methodist Church after the Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus Apostolic purchased the latter congregation鈥檚 building on Poplar Grove Street.
Through the years, the church offered a variety of programs and religious services. In February 1965, the church (then known as the Central-Summerfield Methodist Church) offered an 鈥渙ld-fashioned minstrel show鈥 in their fellowship hall. While minstelry had a long history as popular entertainment for white Baltimoreans, the show was a particularly striking choice given the neighborhood's ongoing transition of largely segregated white to segregated black between 1960 and 1970.
Eventually, the church became the Wildwood Parkway United Methodist Church and operates today as the New Covenant United Methodist Church.
Touted as "modern market in the country," and now considered an early prototype for suburban shopping centers, the North Avenue Market opened in 1928 with twelve retail stores and twenty-two lane bowling alley on the second floor at a cost of $1,850,000.The site of the market between Charles Street and Maryland Avenue had originally been the site of two country houses (including one used by Confederate General Robert E. Lee) but thanks the rapid development of north Baltimore in the early twentieth century the new market drew in fifty thousand visitors on its opening day and soon attracted more than two hundred grocery vendors.
After WWII, however, as many industrial businesses began to leave the area, the market began to decline and only thirty of the stalls were occupied when a destructive six-alarm fire in August 1968 shut down a portion of the market and led to substantial changes for the building. The fire, which started in the Woodlawn Lunch stall, was so hot that it cracked glass display cases and caused canned food to explode. A crowd of eight hundred residents gathered to watch the fire, tragically including elderly market manager, George Horshoff, suffered a heart attack and collapsed while viewing the damage and died shortly after. Two of the main factors in the extensive destruction caused by the fire were a lack of a sprinkler system and the sheet metal window guards, which obstructed fire fighters trying to enter the building.
After the fire, the market was purchased by James and Carolyn Frenkil, owners of the Center City, Inc., development company, who planned to reopen a portion of the market over the next six years and sold the northern portion of the building to be developed into high-rise senior citizen housing. The northern portion of the market was razed to accommodate the seventeen-story retirement home. The remaining part of the building was turned into a supermarket which opened in 1974.
Despite efforts to rejuvenate the building or redevelop any of the property, the heart of the building was closed off and vacant for nearly forty years following the fire. In 2008, a $1 million project for the building was launched to restore the building as an "arts-focused mix of shops, eateries, and offices." The rehabilitation process for the property is still ongoing, but has been successful so far. In 2012 the continued rehabilitation project for the market was awarded grant money from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development as well as from the Central Baltimore Partnership. The newest plans for the space include new paint, addition lighting, and re-opening exterior windows that were covered decades ago.
Dedicated in March 1965, the North Point branch of the Baltimore County Public Library is a sharp example of modernism in the southeastern suburbs. The building was designed by the local firm of Smith and Veale, a partnership of architects Thomas Smith and Graham Veale, who placed the structure on a raised terrace to help it stand out from the neighboring school and shopping center. The building's dedication on March 14, 1965 was attended by Baltimore County executive Spiro T. Agnew, county librarian Charles W. Robinson, and pastors from the Dundalk Methodist Church and St. Rita's Catholic Church.
This library was the fourteenth built in Baltimore County and the second largest after the Catonsville branch. The library's exhaustive collection of maritime literature, which included many out-of-print volumes on ship models, sailing, piracy, whaling and maritime history, was a legacy of then librarian and enthusiastic sailor Robert E. Greenfield. Today, the library collections include historic photographs of Dundalk, Sparrow's Point, Turner Station and other area communities.
Northeast Market was established in 1885 as the area around Johns Hopkins Hospital was developed. The market was enlarged in 1896 and, in 1955, the original wooden structure replaced and modernized with a massive brick building with funds from a $102 million city bond issue. The last renovation of the twentieth century was in the 1980s.
In 2013, the market received a much needed facelift. The market received $2 million in renovations, giving the market a more clean and inviting look. Funds were provided by the Baltimore Public Market Corp. (which owns all six public markets in Baltimore), Johns Hopkins, and the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition, Inc. In addition to exterior renovations, seven new vendor stalls were added and the market has put a focus on healthy eating.
Built by the Northern Central Railroad, the former Baltimore Freight Shed is a rare example of composite timber and iron roof construction of the mid nineteenth century.
The roof structure is comprised of a series of tricomposite trusses with timber top chords, wrought iron tension rods, and cast iron compression members. This use of both timber and iron in the same roofing system formed a transition period between short span timber trusses and longer span iron and steel trusses that would be in widespread use by the end of the century. The building remains in use today as the home of the Merritt Downtown Athletic Club.