History:

1. Niles’ National Register, Volume 27, Part 3 (1825) H. Niles, editor
2. The Chronicles of Baltimore (1874) by John Thomas Scharf
3. History of Baltimore City and County (1881) by John Thomas Scharf
4. The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries, Volume 7 (1881)
5. Baltimore: Its History and its People, Volume 2 (1912) by Lewis Historical Publishing Co.
6. National Star-Spangled Banner Centennial Program & Baltimore Book (1914)
7. Maryland Historical Magazine, Volume 17 (1921) Maryland Historical Society
8. Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State (1948) by The Federal Writers’ Project
9. The Amiable Baltimoreans (1984) by Francis F. Beirne
10. Druid Hill Park: The Heart of Baltimore (2008) by Eden Unger Bowditch, Anne Draddy

Architecture:

1. Architectural Record, Volume 1 (1892) by The American Institute of Architects
2. Architectural Record, Volume 21 (1907) by The American Institute of Architects
3. The Architecture of Baltimore: An Illustrated History (2004) Mary Ellen Hayward, Frank R. Shivers
4. Look Again in Baltimore (2005) John R. Dorsey, James DuSel
5. The American Skyscraper, 1850-1940: A Celebration of Height (2008) Joseph J. Korom

Edward Johnson (1769-1829) was elected in 1808 as the third mayor of Baltimore, replacing Thorowgood Smith.  Johnson was subsequently re-elected in 1810, 1812, 1814, 1819 (when George Stiles resigned) and 1822.

In the summer of 1812, with war against the British imminent, an angry mob of Baltimoreans trapped and tortured a group of tories at city jail.  Mayor Johnson arrived in order to quell the situation, advising the prisoners and negotiating with the mob.  His stance against the instigators was an important political decision as Baltimore, and the United States, moved away from vigilantism.  He is also noted for owning the brewery in which Mary Pickersgill sewed the Star-Spangled Banner, America’s most significant flag.

A doctor by trade, Johnson began his medical practice the same year he entered politics.  During a serious yellow fever outbreak in 1819 Johnson donated $150.00 of his own money for the publication of a medical report on the epidemic.  His efforts proved central in ending the citywide health crisis.

Mayor Johnson was present for the laying of the Washington Monument’s cornerstone.  This historical tablet (placed across the street from Carroll Mansion) marks the location of his former home.  Brewer’s Park (recently replaced with a hotel) was once next door.

39° 17′ 18.30″ N 76° 36′ 15.89″ W

39° 17′ 14.79″ N 76° 37′ 14.85″ W

The Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower (Map) is two blocks north of Oriole Park at the intersection of S. Eutaw Street and W. Lombard Street. Designed by Joseph Evans Sperry, the building was the tallest in Baltimore between 1911 and 1923. Conceived by Captain Isaac Emerson during a trip to Europe in 1900, the iconic structure was modeled after the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Emerson invented Bromo-Seltzer, a hangover remedy containing sodium bromide, a toxic ingredient taken off the U.S. market in 1975. Bromo-Seltzer was sold nationwide and was very popular for its sedative qualities. Originally a giant bottle of the elixir stood atop the tower, offering potential respite for all Baltimoreans. The factory at the base of the statue has since been replaced with a fire station. Today the tower is an enclave for some of Charm City’s artists, the historic building providing studios for painters, writers and photographers.

Druid Hill Park (Map) has an array of historic structures within its boundaries.  Built just before the Civil War, the enormous public estate features monuments, installations and buildings from a time before ours…

George A. Frederick’s Moorish Tower stands at the southeast edge of Druid Hill Lake.  After designing City Hall, Frederick worked as an architect for the Baltimore Park Commission from 1863-1895.  The Turkish style observatory and Chinese Station (now removed) were two of his creations in the park.

Another George Frederick design is the Palm House (or Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens) located at McCulloh and Gwynn Falls Parkway, near the zoo entrance.  Built in 1889, the Victorian style building is the last of Baltimore’s greenhouses still standing.  Carroll Park, Patterson Park and Clifton Park all had similar buildings at one time, each eventually falling victim to decay and demolition.  The Druid Hill Conservatory was restored in 2004, the process linking the five structures that make up the complex.  The facility is open to the public with two dollar donations appreciated.  The John Cook Memorial Sundial rests in a garden on the main building’s east side.

The headquarters for Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks is housed in the restored Druid Hill Bathhouse.  The building was segregated until 1956 and later abandoned when the city’s public bath system was closed a few years later.  After a $2.6 million renovation in 1994 the white marble structure was opened as the Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Jr. Building.

The Mansion House sits on a hill over-looking a vast open set of fields.  Built in the early 19th century the building was the former residence of Nicholas Rogers.  Son of the Scotsman Lloyd Nicholas Rogers, Nicholas sold the mansion and estate to the city of Baltimore around 1860.  The English style residence and corresponding country landscape was preserved when the city began designing and constructing the park.  John H. B. Latrobe made alterations to the mansion during the park’s early development.  The building now contains the main office of the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.

Completed in 1871, Druid Hill Lake is one of the largest man-made lakes in the country.  It was a result of the first American earth dam construction, a milestone in our civil engineering history.  The lake is surrounded by a well-paved track and is lined with various statues and interesting architecture.

The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation (Map) stands at the corner of Maryland Avenue and West Preston Street in Charm City. Designed by the prolific Charles E. Cassell, the amphitheatrical building is a unique mixture of architectural practices. Cassell also designed the First Church of Christ, Scientists and the Stafford Hotel. Built in 1889, the structure was originally occupied by the Associate Congregational Church. In 1937 the Greek Orthodox community purchased the building for its growing congregation.

The Charlcote House (Map), located in the north Baltimore neighborhood of Guilford, was designed by John Russell Pope, the acclaimed American architect.  Pope also designed the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C., as well as Baltimore’s Museum of Art.  in 1914 construction began on the Charlcote House, the stately mansion created for James Swan Frick, the son of William Frederick Frick, an important lawyer for the B & O Railroad, the Consolidated Coal Company and the Consolidated Gas Company.  The nearly 100 year-old classical revival style building is situated just west of the Guilford Reservoir and is surrounded by an iron fence.

This semi-chronological (and ongoing) list aims to clarify and organize information on some of America’s prominent early architects and the Baltimore buildings that continue to memorialize them.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820)

1. Basilica of the Assumption

Maximilian Godefroy (1765-1840)

1. Battle Monument
2. Unitarian Church

Robert Cary Long, Sr. (1770-1833)

1. Baltimore’s Peale Museum
2. Davidge Hall (with Latrobe’s influence and possibly Godefroy’s design)
3. Old Saint Paul’s Church (walls retained after building burned down in 1854)

Robert Mills (1781-1855)

1. Washington Monument

Richard Upjohn (1802-1878)

1. Old Saint Paul’s Church (walls retained from Robert Cary Long, Sr.’s design)

Robert Cary Long, Jr. (1810-1849)

1. Lloyd Street Synagogue
2. Green Mount Cemetery entrance and mausoleum
3. Jerome Bonaparte Townhouse
4. Saint Peter the Apostle Church (11 S. Poppleton St.)
5. Perine House

John Rudolph Niernsee (1814–1885)

1. Green Mount Cemetery hilltop chapel (with James Crawford Neilson)
2. Johns Hopkins Hospital (with James Crawford Neilson)
3. Camden Station (with James Crawford Neilson)
4. St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church (with James Crawford Neilson)
5. Clifton Park (with James Crawford Neilson)

James Crawford Neilson (1816-1900)

1. Green Mount Cemetery hilltop chapel (with John Rudolph Niernsee)
2. Johns Hopkins Hospital (with John Rudolph Niernsee)
3. Camden Station (with John Rudolph Niernsee)
4. Saint John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church (with John Rudolph Niernsee)
5. Clifton Park (with John Rudolph Niernsee)

E. Francis Baldwin (1837-1916)

1. Saint Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church
2. B & O Roundhouse (B & O Railroad Museum)
3. Buildings at 10,12,14 and 16 East Chase Street (with Bruce Price)
4. Saint Ann’s Catholic Church (E. 22nd St. & Greenmount Ave.)
5. Mount Royal Station (with Josias Pennington)
6. Maryland Club (with Josias Pennington)
7. B & O Warehouse at Camden Yards (with Josias Pennington)

George A. Frederick (1842-1924)

1. City Hall
2. Moorish Tower (Druid Hill Park)
3. Palm House Conservatory (Druid Hill Park)
4. Mount Royal entrance to Druid Hill Park (possibly with John H. B. Latrobe)
5. Edgar Allan Poe Monument
6. Hollins Market
7. Cylburn House

Charles E. Cassell (1842-1916)

1. Severn Building
2. First Church of Christ, Scientists
3. Chamber of Commerce Building (17 Commerce St.)
4. Stewart’s Department Building
5. Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation
6. Stafford Hotel

Henry F. Brauns (1845-1917)

1. Northern District Police Station
2. Mount Royal Pumping Station
3. The Lorraine Park Cemetery gatehouse

Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912)

1. Continental Trust Building

William Rutherford Mead (1846-1928)

1. Munsey Building (designed by McKim, Mead and White)
2. Lovely Lane Methodist Church (designed by McKim, Mead and White)

Charles Follen Mckim (1847-1909)

1. Munsey Building (designed by McKim, Mead and White)
2. Lovely Lane Methodist Church (designed by McKim, Mead and White)

Stanford White (1853-1906)

1. Munsey Building (designed by McKim, Mead and White)
2. Lovely Lane Methodist Church (designed by McKim, Mead and White)
3. Garrett House (interior renovation, 1893)

Thomas Dixon (d. 1886)

1. Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church (with Charles L. Carson)

Charles L. Carson (1847-1891)

1. Equitable Building (with Joseph Evans Sperry)
2. Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church (with Thomas Dixon)
   
3. Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Synagogue
4. Goucher Hall of the Women’s College of Baltimore
5. Central Savings Bank (N. Charles St. & E. Lexington St.)
   

Joseph Evans Sperry (1854-1930)

1. Equitable Building (with Charles L. Carson)
2. Eutaw Place Temple
3. Bromo-Seltzer Tower
4. Brewer’s Exchange
5. Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company Building (with Wyatt)

Josias Pennington (1854-1929)

1. Mount Royal Station (with E. Francis Baldwin)
2. Maryland Club (with E. Francis Baldwin)
3. B & O Warehouse at Camden Yards (with E. Francis Baldwin)

Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison (1872 – 1938)

1. Pennsylvania Station

Clyde N. Friz (1867-1942)

1. Central Library of the Pratt Library system (1933)
2. Standard Oil Building
3. Scottish Rite Masonic Temple (with John Russell Pope)

John Russell Pope (1874-1937)

1. Baltimore Museum of Art
2. Charlcote House
3. Scottish Rite Masonic Temple (with Clyde N. Friz)

39° 17′ 5.96″ N 76° 37′ 14.82″ W

The B & O Warehouse at Camden Yards (Map) is located along the right field boundary of Oriole Park.  A former structure of the B & O Railroad, the narrow building was part of Baltimore’s Camden Station.  Early in the 19th century when trade with the western interior United States threatened Charm City’s historic port economy, a plan was hatched to build a railway connecting Baltimore to the Ohio River.  In 1856, Camden Station was completed, the complex becoming one of the first commercial railway lines in the world.  In 1905, construction on the warehouse was finished by James Stewart and Company, it’s unique design necessary so it could squeeze between Eutaw Street and the station’s pre-existing railroad tracks.  Today the structure contains offices for the Orioles‘ staff, businesses and restaurants.  At 1,116 feet, the Warehouse at Camden Yards is the longest building in America east of the Mississippi.

The state reptile of Maryland, the diamondback terrapin, lives in brackish waters and swampy regions along the eastern coast of North America.  During the 18th and 19th centuries, the diamondback flourished in the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, providing an abundant food source to the developing area.  Originally slave labor food, the 5 to 7 inch long terrapins became a delicacy during the 1900’s, eventually fetching high prices in America’s finest restaurants.

[Source]

Chesapeake colonists ate terrapin prepared Native-American fashion, roasted whole in live coals. Abundant and easy to catch, terrapin were so ample that landowners often fed their slaves and indentured servants a staple diet of terrapin meat. Later, in the 19th century, the turtle was appreciated as gourmet food, especially in a stew laced with cream and sherry. Subsequently, tremendous retail demand and heavy fishing of the terrapin nearly depleted its supply, and protective laws were enacted.

[Source]

(1869) Barnum’s Hotel at the corner of Calvert and Fayette (dubbed the best hotel in the United States by Charles Dickens) holds a dinner for 17th U.S. President Andrew Johnson that features 90 items of Maryland cuisine, from elk to turtle.

Baltimore’s Equitable Building (Map) was designed by architects Charles L. Carson and Joseph Evans Sperry.  The structure, located at 10 N. Calvert Street, was completed in 1891, and is the oldest building in Monument Square.  Built on the former site of Barnum’s Hotel, the Equitable was considered the city’s first skyscraper and contained Turkish baths in the basement.  The ten-story building is adjacent to Charm City’s two courthouses and the Battle Monument.  It’s exterior survived the Great Fire of 1904.

39° 17′ 25.24″ N 76° 36′ 44.90″ W