President Street Station

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Coordinates: 39°17′2.4″N 76°36′8.8″W / 39.284000°N 76.602444°W / 39.284000; -76.602444
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the New York City Subway station, see
President Street (IRT Nostrand Avenue Line)
.
President Street Station
Isaac Ridgeway Trimble; Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad
Architectural styleMid 19th Century Revival, Italianate, Greek Revival
Restored1996-1997
NRHP reference No.92001229[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPSeptember 10, 1992
Designated BCL2009

The President Street Station in Baltimore, Maryland, is a former train station and railroad terminal. Built in 1849 and opened in February 1850, the station saw some of the earliest bloodshed of the American Civil War (1861-1865), and was an important rail link during the conflict. It is the oldest surviving big-city railroad terminal in the United States.

In 1997, a preservation campaign and renovation project was completed, enabling the station to be operated as Baltimore Civil War Museum.

History

19th century

President Street Station and its eastern yards and shops of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad twenty years after construction, in 1869

The

Baltimore and Port Deposit Rail Road (B&PD), founded in 1832, completed a rail line from Baltimore to the western shore of the Susquehanna River in 1837.[2]: 32  [3]: 489  The railroad's Baltimore terminus was on the east side of the basin now known as the Inner Harbor
at the southern end of President Street.

The B&PD exchanged freight cars with the

Pratt Street, to the eastern basin harbor area from its original Mount Clare depot on the western side of the central business district.[2]: 31–2 [4]
: 144 

The B&PD and its merger successor company, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B), transferred passengers to the B&O's first downtown depot at East Pratt and South Charles streets by a horse-drawn car on B&O's connecting track. (The Baltimore City Council prohibited the operation of locomotives on this track for reasons of frightening horses and fears of fires).[2]: 32  By 1838, the PW&B was carrying passengers from further northeast through Philadelphia to Baltimore, where they could transfer to the B&O and continue west to Ohio or by a new branch line further south to the national capital at Washington, D.C.[5]

The PW&B started building its own station at the southwestern corner of President Street with Canton Avenue with train yards, including a roundhouse, shops and freight warehouses of about six square city blocks, extending east along Canton Avenue, later renamed Fleet Street.[6]: 3  The Greek Revival-style station opened on February 18, 1850.[7][8]

In addition to the brick head house with a distinctive arched roof, the original station also had a 208 feet (63 m) long barrel vaulted train shed over the tracks.[9] The PW&B added a similarly styled freight house, adjacent to the south of the passenger station, in 1852.[6][10]

American Civil War

On February 23, 1861, President-elect

whistle stop train tour, transferred from the President Street Station to Camden Station in order to thwart the Baltimore Plot assassination attempt.[11][12][13][14]

The station was involved in the

6th Massachusetts infantry regiment of the state militia and the "Washington Brigade" of Philadelphia from the Pennsylvania state militia. Both units were heading to Washington to reinforce defenses in response to the requests for troops in his proclamation declaring the existence of an insurrection by President Lincoln after the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in South Carolina by newly organized Confederate States military forces a few days earlier.[17][18]

In 1873, the newly organized

Pennsylvania Station" in 1928.[19]

20th century

President Street Station during the Great Depression in 1936
In the 1970s, President Street Station was used as a trucking terminal; on the left, behind the head house, is the train shed that was added in 1913 to replace the original 1850 shed.

The station on North Charles Street and its successors, in the northern reaches of the city, largely replaced the President Street Station for passenger service. The latter continued to serve as a freight station into the 1940s World War II era but served some passenger trains until 1911.[20] The Pennsylvania Railroad, which acquired the PW&B in a merger in 1881, demolished the President Street's eastern train shed after heavy snow damage in 1913 and erected a new, shorter shed, built with wooden roof trusses.[6]

President Street Station was later used as a warehouse. The train shed was destroyed by fire, leaving only the present head house by 1970, when it was abandoned.

Interstate 95.[9]

In 1989, the station's wooden arched roof collapsed in a snowstorm.[21]

Baltimore Civil War Museum

What was once the station's historic 1850 front passenger entrance is now the back of the Baltimore Civil War Museum.
An exhibit inside the Baltimore Civil War Museum

In the 1990s, a

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum, located at the nearby Mount Clare Shops.[17][9]

President Street Station, Inc. operated the museum until 2000, when the building lease was partnered with the

Maryland Historical Society (MdHS), located on their campus of buildings on West Monument Street, until 2006. The lease/partnership arrangement with the City and the FoPSS originally expired in 2017.[22]

The museum temporarily closed in 2007, due to budget constraints by the MdHS in connection with their nearby extension at the new Fells Point Maritime Museum on Thames Street, then re-opened on weekends only, operated by MdHS and subsequently by FofPSS volunteers.[15][23][24] The Civil War Museum was open on weekends in February 2010, in observance of Black History Month, although heavy snowfall forced closure of the museum on two weekends.[7]

In 2009, the City of Baltimore announced plans to designate the old depot as a landmark, which would restrict modifications to the building's exterior, and to request proposals for commercial development of the grounds. FofPSS opposed the city's plan, and called instead for the station's preservation and management as a museum by the National Park Service (NPS).[25] The director of Baltimore City's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, which will review proposals, said that any commercial use "must be subordinate to the history" and that a multi-use partnership would be ideal.[15]

As of 2015, Friends of the Pennsylvania Street Station operates the museum.[11]

National Park Service study

In 2015, U.S. Senators

National Park System.[26] It was incorporated into the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act and enacted in 2019.[27]

In 2019 NPS initiated its President Street Station study. In 2022 NPS conducted a public meeting and a public comment period on the study, and stated that the study was expected to be complete in 2023.[28][29]

References

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-934118-22-1
    .
  3. ^ a b Hall, Clayton C., ed. (1912). Baltimore: Its History and Its People. Vol. 1. Lewis Historical Pub. Co.
  4. ISBN 978-0-8047-2629-0
    .
  5. ^ Dare, Charles P. (1856). Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Guide: Containing a Description of the Scenery, Rivers, Towns, Villages, and Objects of Interest Along the Line of Road : Including Historical Sketches, Legends, &c. Philadelphia: Fitzgibbon & Van Ness. p. 142.
  6. ^ a b c Clement, Dan (1983). "Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, President Street Station" (PDF). Historic American Engineering Record. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-05-02.
  7. ^ a b Gunts, Edward (2010-02-22). "Snowfall muffles museum's 160th anniversary". Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 2013-01-17. Retrieved 2015-04-27.
  8. ^ "Allegheny Observer". Railpace Newsmagazine: 43. March 2008.
  9. ^
    ISBN 0-471-14389-8
    .
  10. ^ Peter E. Kurtze (November 1991). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: President Street Station" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  11. ^ a b Pitts, Jonathan (2015-04-08). "Road to Lincoln's end ran through Baltimore". Baltimore Sun.
  12. ^ Daniel Stashower. "The Unsuccessful Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln." Smithsonian Magazine.
  13. ^ "The Thwarted Plot to Kill Lincoln on the Streets of Baltimore." Boundary Stones: WETA's Washington DC History Blog.
  14. ^ Michael J. Kline. "The Baltimore Plot, The First Conspiracy to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln." Chapter 16, "An Unexpected Arrival." pp. 258-259.
  15. ^ a b c Bykowicz, Julie (May 26, 2009). "City seeks tenant for landmark President Street Station". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2015-04-27.
  16. ^ Wagenblast, Bernie (2002-12-24). "Re: (rshsdepot) President Street Station (Baltimore), MD". Retrieved 2008-03-08.
  17. ^ a b Gunts, Edward (2008-01-14). "Train station is on track to preservation". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2015-04-27.
  18. JSTOR 43523701
    .
  19. ^ Barbara Hoff (April 1975). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Pennsylvania Station" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 7, 2016. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
  20. ISBN 0-934118-17-5
    .
  21. ISBN 9781571456885
    .
  22. ^ Klein, Allison (2000-11-02). "Historical Society to take over Baltimore Civil War Museum". Baltimore Sun.
  23. ^ "Media room". Maryland Historical Society. 2009. Archived from the original on 2009-04-09. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  24. ^ Sumathi Reddy (2007-12-28). "History for sale in Inner Harbor". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2008-02-01.[dead link]
  25. ^ "Station and grounds merit preservation". The Baltimore Sun. May 11, 2009. p. 10.
  26. ^ "Cardin, Mikulski Reintroduce Bill to Advance Preservation of Baltimore's Historic President Street Station". Senator Ben Cardin. 2015-02-13. Archived from the original on 2015-04-17. Retrieved 2015-04-27. Press release.
  27. Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 116–9 (text) (PDF)
    Sec. 2003. Approved March 12, 2019.
  28. ^ "President Street Station Special Resource Study; Public Meeting". Philadelphia, PA: National Park Service (NPS). 2022-08-18. p. 19.
  29. ^ "National Park Service Invites Public Input on President Street Station – Special Resource Study". NPS. 2022-08-16. News release.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to President Street Station.
Preceding station Pennsylvania Railroad Following station
Calvert Street
Terminus
 Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Baltimore
toward Philadelphia
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