Featured Stories
Baltimore Bargain House
One of the largest businesses on the West Side in the early twentieth century the Baltimore Bargain House—a mail-order wholesale business that employed over a thousand people and earned profits in the millions that grew to become the fourth largest…
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…
Baltimore County Almshouse
The Baltimore County Almshouse officially opened in 1874 as a public home for the county's indigent, elderly, and infirm residents. The Almshouse and its predecessors were the ancestors of today’s nursing homes, mental health hospitals, homeless…
Recent Stories
Parks Sausage Factory
The first African American owned company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Parks Sausage Company, was headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. Parks Sausage was successful because of its founder, Henry Parks. Parks started the company in…
Sparrows Point
Just outside the limits of Baltimore City, on a piece of land jutting out into the Patapsco River, Maryland’s first steel plants were built. In 1887, the Maryland Steel Company purchased an area of agricultural marshland called Sparrows Point. Four…
Bolivar in Bedford Square
Tiny Bedford Square in Guilford, at the intersection of St. Paul and North Charles streets, hosts a life size bronze bust of Simón Bolivar. Also referred to as the “George Washington of South America,” the Venezuelan-born Bolivar was the military…
BCPSS 25th Street Headquarters
Two Art Deco columns, flanking the entrance of the 25th Street Safeway parking lot, serve as the only concrete evidence of the central decision-making site during Baltimore’s era of school desegregation. From 1931 to 1987, a complex of two…
The W.E.B. Du Bois House
In 1939 sociologist, activist, author, and cofounder of the NAACP, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois, had a house built at 2302 Montebello Terrace in the neighborhood of Morgan Park. Barred from many neighborhoods by Jim Crow laws and…
"Baltimore Uproar"
At the Upton Metro Station at Pennsylvania Avenue and Laurens Street, an explosion of color greets transit patrons at the conclusion of their escalator journey. “Baltimore Uproar,” a monumental mosaic by the renowned African-American artist Romare…
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Baltimore's Public Markets: Past and Present
6 Locations ~ Curated by The Explore Baltimore Heritage TeamExplore Baltimore Heritage
A project by Baltimore HeritageExplore Baltimore Heritage helps historians, students, and residents tell the stories behind Baltimore's buildings and neighborhoods. Read on to learn more about historic parks, theaters, rowhouses and more! Do you have an idea for a story? An old photograph you'd like to share? Please get in touch.
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