This tour was developed by Sarah Evans, Senior Writer for The Maryland Zoo, with research support from graduate students in the UMBC Department of History and Dr. Denise Meringolo.

For over two hundred years this neighborhood has been a center of activity to entrepreneurs and merchants of all kinds, suffragists and civil rights protesters, and much more. Start from Lexington Market and explore the rich history of Downtown's west side. Many of these stories were created in partnership with the University of Maryland Baltimore County Department of History, Public History Track.

Discover historic places touched by the Battle of Baltimore and the War of 1812! When Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry from on board the British ship HMS Tonnant, he was just one of many who waited anxiously through the night hoping that Baltimore could stand before the British attack. Ship-builders, merchants, enslaved men and women, and seamstresses played a role in the defense of the city. In September of 1814, scores of local buildings stood witness to the War of…

Baltimore's public markets have a long and sometimes controversial history. Learn more about the markets past and present!

The place now known as Baltimore, like the rest of what is now known as the United States of America, has always been home to Native peoples. Baltimore is part of the ancestral homelands of the Piscataway and the Susquehannock, and a diverse host of American Indian folks from other nations have passed through or lived here at different times — and still do! In the mid-twentieth century, thousands of Lumbee Indians and members of other tribal nations migrated to Baltimore City, seeking jobs and…