| Maryland, Baltimore — A Name Before a Place |
| | Leakin Park had a name before it had a place. At his death in 1922 John Wilson Leakin left the city several downtown properties to be sold so land could he purchased for apark. The city deferred action because of existing leases, the Great Depression, and a controversy over whether the park should be a large natural area in the outer city or a smaller inner city park. Finally, Baltimore officials followed the advice of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and acquired the Thomas Winans' . . . — Map (db m6338) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — An Old Mill Stream |
| | If you were standing here in the early 1800s, you would have been listening to the waterwheel humming away at the Windsor Mill across this bridge. This section of the Gwynns Falls Trail is built over a three-mile millrace that carried water to power the Five Mills complex near today's Leon Day Park. These mills and others alon-e the Gwynns falls and Dead Run streams helped turn the Baltimore area into one of the nation's leading flour and textile producers.
[photograph]
A Baltimore, . . . — Map (db m6340) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Bridging Gwynns Falls |
| | The lofty, triple-arched Baltimore Street Bridge was built here in 1932 to provide better access across the Gwynns Falls Valley to the city's rapidly developing west side. Earlier, the Frederick Turnpike crossed farther south on a relatively short, low bridge at the narrowest point along the stream. After the National Road was built over the Appalachian Mountains, the Frederick Turnpike became part of this road and Baltimore's principal route to new markets in the Ohio Valley.
For many . . . — Map (db m6351) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Carroll Park |
| | Baltimore’s Park Commission purchased portions of the Mount Clare estate between 1890 and 1907 to provide a large landscaped park for the city’s southwestern neighborhoods. The Olmsted Brothers firm helped the city develop plans to protect the historic house and to provide grounds for passive and active recreation. A protest by African Americans that they were barred from city golf facilities led to a decision in 1934 to designate certain days for their use at the golf course here. The city . . . — Map (db m3151) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Carrollton Viaduct |
| | The Carrollton Viaduct carried the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad over the Gwynns Falls, its first malor stream crossing as it headed west from its Pratt Street terminus Completed in 1829, the 300-foot stone span is named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the B&O's founders. Worried about competition from canals, Baltimore's business leaders cast their lot with a new untested technology, railroads. Horses initially pulled the loads, but the B&O . . . — Map (db m6391) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Cherry Hill |
| | Part of the city but green as a suburb, Cherry Hill is a distinctive African American planned community. Cherry Hill was established to provide housing for blacks who moved to Baltimore to work in industries during World War II. Originally it consisted of 541 rowhouses, 600 apartments, and a community building. Residents added 14 churches and many organizations. As the community grew, residents campaigned for schools, parks, recreation centers, and other facilities. This neighborhood, now older . . . — Map (db m6359) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Crimea Estate |
| | In the mid-1800s this meadow and hillside were part of Thomas Winans' country estate, the Crimea. After returning from Russia, where he helped build the St. Petersburg-Moscow railroad, Winans established this estate. He and his Russian-born wife, Celeste, also had an in-town mansion, Aledoffsky, which no longer exists.
You can follow the old stone roadway or a pathway that leads to the Victorian stone mansion, called Orianda, and small wooden chapel at the top of the hill. At the pathway's . . . — Map (db m6336) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Dickeyville's Historic Legacy |
| | Dickeyville has been known by several other names - Tschudi, Franklinville, Wetheredville, Hillsdale - depending on who owned the grist, paper, or textile mills powered by the Gwynns Falls. Both the Wethereds and Dickeys ran their mill operations as a company village that provided housing, churches, schools, and a retail store in return for a stable labor force willing to accept low wages. In 1934 the entire complex of two mills and 81 houses was sold at auction. The village was restored as one . . . — Map (db m6339) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Early Industries |
| | Industries have flourished here in the lower Gwynns Falls Valley since the early 1700s, when the Baltimore Iron Works Co. turned iron into nails and anchors and Dr. Charles Carroll's gristmills ground wheat into flour. The Wilkens Curled Hair Factory, which had as many as 1,000 employees, processed animal hair for use in mattresses and upholstery - and, like many other industries, dumped its waste into the waterways. Wilkens built housing for some of his workers and provided land for the avenue . . . — Map (db m6393) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Early Transportation Routes |
| | The Gwynns Falls Trail follows a valley that has served as both a transportation avenue and an obstacle since the days of American Indians and European colonists. Early roads were privately owned turnpikes that charged tolls; they became public highways with the advent of automobiles. Streetcars, electrified in the 1880s, served commuters until the period after World War II, when buses replaced them. America's first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, crossed the valley near Wilkens Avenue. In . . . — Map (db m6352) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Ellicott Flour Mills |
| | The Ellicott Driveway portion of the Gwynns Falls trail follows the route of a millrace that carried water to a flour-milling complex owned by the Ellicott family. In the 1800s, 26 gristmills along the Gwynns Falls and other on the Jones Falls and Patapsco River contributed to Baltimore's first economic boom. Besides their Ellicott City mills, the Ellicotts built the Three Mills complex in this area and were partners in the five Calverton Mills upstream at Leon Day Park. The Ellicotts also . . . — Map (db m5533) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Federal Hill and Otterbein |
| | The Federal Hill and Otterbein Historic Districts exemplify preservation efforts in Baltimore. Adjacent to the Inner Harbor, they were among the earliest areas developed in the city. After periods of economic prosperity and decline, these historic neighborhoods were rediscovered and renovated in the late 1900s. Federal Hill - named for Maryland's ratification of the Federal Constitution in 1788 - includes Federal-style rowhouses with gabled roofs and dormer windows and later Italianate styles . . . — Map (db m6357) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — John Smith Explores Patapsco |
| | Captain John Smith visited the Patapsco River twice in 1608 after settling at Jamestown the previous year. In a 40-foot shallop, Smith and his crew were exploring the Chesapeake Bay hoping, in vain, to discover a passage to the Pacific Ocean. On the first journey they moored near the Patapsco's mouth and traveled across the Middle Branch, the basin for both the Gwynns Falls stream and the Patapsco River. They found the Patapsco navigable as far as the falls at Elkridge and placed a brass cross . . . — Map (db m6360) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Leon Day Park |
| | This park is named for Leon Day, an outstanding player in the Negro Leagues who was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A resident of southwest Baltimore, Day joined the Baltimore Black Sox in 1934 when African Americans could not play in the Major or Minor Leagues He went on to excel as a second baseman and pitcher for several teams and returned to Baltimore in the 1940s as a member of the Elite Giants He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995 just a few days before he died. . . . — Map (db m6345) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Mount Clare, the Georgia Plantation |
| | In the late 1760’s, the Mount Clare mansion was built by Charles Carroll, Barrister and his wife, Margaret Tilghman, as their summer home. The mansion was located on the grounds of the original plantation, Georgia, and included an orangery, orchards, fields of tobacco and wheat, and terraced gardens that fell away from the hillside toward the river—all, most likely cared for by slaves. Earlier, Carroll’s father, Charles, sold a large portion of the plantation to the Baltimore Iron Works . . . — Map (db m2533) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Of Fords, Felles, and Falls |
| | The Susquehannock and Algonquian Indians had long traveled through this area when Captain John Smith explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay region in 1608 As the Susquehannocks went from Pennsylvania to the bay, they crossed the Gwynns Falls stream at two fords one near the stone pillars of the former Brunswick Street Bridge - visible from the trail - and the other near Washington Boulevard. Smith noted that the streams often tumbled over "felles" or "fells," later called falls. This stream (or . . . — Map (db m6390) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Restoring Water Quality |
| | After centuries of abuse, the Gwynns Falls is being restored as a healthy stream. Government, civic groups, and scientists monitor water quality here and work together to implement restoration projects. Volunteers pick up trash, plant trees and grasses to stabilize stream banks, promote pollution reduction
initiatives, and conduct environmental programs at schools and along this trail. Major storms have devastating effects on the waterway. Since the colonial era, 70 percent of the watershed's . . . — Map (db m6389) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Reviving the Waterfront |
| | Here where the Gwynns Falls flows into the Patapsco's Middle Branch, Baltimoreans have come to work and to play over the years. Since the early 1700s this area his been home to mining operations, brickyards, glass factories, and other industries. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, residents came by streetcar to enjoy amusement parks and dance pavilions, picnic grounds and fish houses, swimming beaches and rowing clubs. Crowds watched the Baltimore Black Sox and Elite Giants of the Negro Leagues . . . — Map (db m6363) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Rowhouses: a Baltimore Tradition |
| | In Baltimore's early years, the Gwynns Falls lay beyond the city's settled area. During the 19th century, rapid population growth pushed the boundaries westward by annexing new areas in the valley and then beyond. Through the years of expansion, the rowhouse was the preferred residential type, providing economies of scale and affordable housing for working-class residents. Street-front white marble steps, scrubbed frequently, became a well-known Baltimore trademark. Rowhouses distinguished . . . — Map (db m4944) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Solo Gibbs Park |
| | Solo Gibbs Park was created in 1979 when 1-395 was built. The 1869 Sachse Bird's Eye View Illustrated Map shows the once larger neighborhood where, since the late 1700s a free African American community lived, worked and worshipped along side European descendant Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, and Lutherans. Baltimore's African Americans organized some of their first churches and schools near here on Sharp Street. Together these people promoted the abolition of slavery and participated in the . . . — Map (db m6356) |
| Maryland, Baltimore — Struggling For Equality |
| | Slavery, segregation, discrimination, and the struggle for equality have defined the African American experience in Baltimore. At the start of the Civil War, Baltimore had 25,680 free blacks-more than any other U.S. city-and only 2,218 slaves. Over the next century, blacks increasingly were confined to residences near the city center, where many lived in substandard housing and competed with European immigrants for jobs as domestics or laborers. Restaurants, schools, and other facilities were . . . — Map (db m6355) |
| Maryland (Baltimore County), Gwynn Oak — Franklintown's Historic Roots |
| | The Gwynns Falls Trail begins near Franklintown at the abrupt end of Interstate 70 and passes by two of the community's landmarks, a mill and an inn. The gristmill operated on Dead Run from 1761 to 1934. Franklintown Inn accommodated patrons of a racetrack established by William H. Freeman, an 1800s entrepreneur who also was involved in building Franklin Turnpike and planning a Victorian cottage suburb called Franklin Towne. Though it became a part of Baltimore City in 1918, Franklintown never . . . — Map (db m6332) |
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