Baltimore History & Architecture

I'm not an architect, but there is a lot that I admire in old buildings.  Baltimore has a lot of old buildings.  The city has been around in one form or another since the early 1700's and there is only one building that dates back from the 1700's which still exists. The oldest building is a home, the Mount Clare Mansion, which was built in 1760.  It was the home of Charles Carroll, a distant relative of Charles Carroll the signer of the Declaration of Independence.


There are more homes that survive from the 1800's, such as the home of Mary Pickersgill, the seamstress who sewed the American flag which flew over Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore.  Another example is the Basilica, which is located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood.  The Basilica was designed by Benjamin Latrobe and it is the oldest Catholic Cathedral in the United States.  It was constructed between 1806 and 1821 and it was consecrated 31 May 1821. 


Many of the really old buildings are are few & far in between.  Many were destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire (photos link) in February 1904.  One place that survived was the building which used to house the House of Welsh, a noted steak house in Baltimore.  When I was a kid, one of the places that my mom took me for a special treat was the House of Welsh.  Something that I found fascinating about the place was that on the walls of the restaurant, there were pictures of the Great Fire and the damage that it did.  One of the pictures was of that same building and the caption, which was something like, "The only building left."  Here's a bit of trivia for you, on 8 Feb 1904, 35 Western Union telegraph operators start tapping out news of the Great Baltimore Fire from the House of Welsh restaurant, on whose corner of Guilford and Saratoga the last remaining telegraph pole that carried lines in every direction stood. For three days, the operators send out news from the restaurant.   If you want to know more about the fire, please visit the Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage Project, Enoch Pratt Free Library (picture above left).  By the way, another fine library in Baltimore is the Peabody Library, part of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, which is part of the Johns Hopkins University (picture above right).  


Baltimore is not a city of buildings that are all alike. It isn't unusual to find a house which looks like a misplaced castle adjoining a building that may have been a warehouse at one time.  The city is quirky and that quirkiness is reflected in the buildings.  That quirkiness is one reason I've always been very fond of the city, regardless of it being my hometown!  I love the incongruities!


Baltimore has many names: Charm City, Monumental City, Bawlmer, Crabtown, etc.  The bench, however, says it all.