In an effort to revive their city’s sagging economy, a group of nineteenth-century Baltimore businessmen and civic leaders launched an innovative enterprise: a railroad.

Poster advertising the B&O’s centenary celebration. Courtesy B&O Railroad Museum

leven years after the British had been turned back at Fort McHenry and Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the "Star-Spangled Banner," the city of Baltimore considered itself under economic siege. The largest U.S. city, after New York and Philadelphia, Baltimore was one of the major ports along the eastern seaboard, shipping out timber, tobacco, and grain from the area. When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, it increased the impact of steamboat commerce from New York inland, leading to the continued expansion of New York City's role as the nation's principal center of commerce. Baltimoreans feared that unless they did something bold and innovative, their city risked becoming a backwater town.
        In 1826, John Eager Howard, a Baltimore businessman and Revolutionary War hero, gave a dinner at his home, Belvedere. During the evening, the concept of a railroad was debated. One of the attendees was Evan Thomas, a merchant who had recently returned from England. There, he had observed the Stockton and Darlington Railroad, where small steam engines were used to haul coal from mines to docks.
        Thomas suggested that a large-scale railroad could be built in the city. It was clear to the group that Baltimore, facing imminent economic decline, had to wager on such a proposition. Subsequently, on February 19, 1827, twenty-five merchants and bankers gathered at the home of George Brown, of the financial firm Alexander Brown and Sons. Their purpose, according to notes from the meeting, was to "undertake consideration the best means of restoring the city of Baltimore that portion of the Western trade which has recently been diverted from it by the introduction of steam navigation and other causes."
        The group came up with a charter for the railroad, the first line of which reads: "Resolved, That immediate application be made to the Legislature of Maryland for an act incorporating a joint stock company to be styled 'The Baltimore & Ohio Railway' and clothing such company with all the powers necessary to the construction of a railroad, with two or more sets of rails, from the city of Baltimore to the Ohio River." The charter was immediately presented to the state legislature and was quickly acted upon. Thus, on February 27, 1827, the state of Maryland incorporated the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the first chartered railroad in the United States.
        Over the next year, B&O stock was sold to more than twenty thousand investors, bringing in around $5 million to start the enterprise. On July 4, 1828, ninety-year-old Charles Carroll (for whom Carrollton, Maryland, is named), the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, helped lay the first stone in the new venture. The city turned out in a massive parade to see the start of the B&O. As he thrust a silver spade into the earth, Carroll declared to the assembled throng that he considered the moment "among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing of the Declaration of Independence, if even it be second to that!"
        That same day, things were also happening in Washington, D.C. President John Quincy Adams was inaugurating an enterprise intended to open an artery leading from the nation's capital to the Ohio River and beyond, to the Great Lakes. It was Adams' hope, as he ceremonially shoveled the first spadeful of dirt for the proposed Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, that the canal would become the greatest economic vehicle in the nation, far grander than the Erie Canal. He wanted to realize a national endeavor that would join the nation together economically, as George Washington had envisioned.
        Forty-five years before, Washington had written a letter to the Marquis de Chastellux, after visiting New York's Mohawk Valley in 1783. In it, he commented:
        "I could not help taking a more contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States, and could not but be struck with the immense diffusion and importance of it; and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt his favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we have wisdom enough to improve them! I shall not rest contented until I have explored the Western country, and traversed those lines (or a great part of them) which have given bounds to a new empire. "
        Washington could be considered the first American to grasp the commercial potential of rivers and translate his concepts into a policy of national expansion and unity through trade. In 1784 he had ridden on horseback from Mount Vernon to view his own western lands and "obtain information of the nearest and best communication between the eastern and western waters; and to facilitate the inland navigation of the Potomack."
        With the canal and railroad developments of the late 1820s,Washington's vision appeared to be coming to life.

Transport for a New World

n September 1829, the B&O became the first company to operate a locomotive built in America. The engine was named Tom Thumb. The B&O was also the first to build a passenger and freight station (Mount Clare in 1829), to earn passenger revenues (December 1829), and publish a timetable (May 23, 1830). On December 24, 1852, it became the first rail line to reach the Ohio River from the eastern seaboard. The B&O earned the sobriquet "Mr. Lincoln's Railroad" during the Civil War when its president, John W. Garrett, remained loyal to the Union cause. (In the 1860 presidential election, Maryland had voted for the pro-slavery Southern Democrat John Breckinridge.) Railroad workshops at Mount Clare were expanded to meet the wartime demand for locomotives, stock, passenger cars, and bridges.

Railroad Firsts

Among the B&O's claims to fame are its many firsts in U.S. history. It was the first railroad company to use iron wheels that revolved with the axles (1829), to operate a railroad depot, Mount Clare, in Baltimore (1833), and to carry a U.S. president. Andrew Jackson boarded a passenger coach at Relay, Maryland, and traveled to Mount Clare in June 1833.         The B&O was the first rail service to enter Washington, D.C., on August 24, 1835, and first to have a government contract for carrying the mail (January 1, 1838). The first long-distance shipment of coal in America arrived at Mount Clare in April 1842. Coal soon became the B&O's largest and most lucrative commodity.         The first baggage car was constructed at Mount Clare (February 1834), and the first "refectory" or dining cars were also built there and placed in service (September 1843). The B&O was the first to place an electric locomotive in regular service (June 27, 1895). America's first air conditioned dining car, the Martha Washington, was put into service on April 23, 1930, and the B&O became the first rail company to operate a completely air-conditioned train, the Columbian, in May 1931.         On May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse sent the first electric telegraph message from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on wires strung along the B&O's right-of-way. The message "What Hath God Wrought" was received at the Mount Clare station.         The company also experienced the first large-scale organized railroad strike, in May 1857. Locomotive engineers blocked the tracks west of Mount Clare to prevent operation. Maryland militia units were called out to protect property and prevent any violence. Conversely, the first railroad relief association for the benefit of injured and needy personnel was established by B&O on May 1, 1880, and the company was the first railroad to employ a woman civil engineer, Olive Dennis (June 1921).         --W.S.C.

        In fact, the number of American railroad firsts and important events associated with the B&O is almost mind-boggling. The railroad's historic and economic impact was huge, but perhaps its most significant contribution was social. It became the major conduit for immigrants arriving in Baltimore to disperse across the country.
        The influx of immigrants between 1831 and 1930 can be arranged into three great waves. Peaks occurred in the 1850s, 1880s, and the decade before World War I. Nearly five million persons immigrated to the United States during the first wave, while more than thirty-two million came in those that followed. Baltimore ranked second only to New York in the number of immigrants received before World War I.
        Most of the immigrants who entered through Baltimore came during the seventy-year period between 1861 and 1930. Economic factors, hardship, and even natural disasters (akin to that evidenced in the Irish potato famine) played a major role in persuading people to immigrate. The strong economic ties that existed between Baltimore and the German port of Bremen (Maryland was a major exporter of tobacco, cotton, and grain to Germany) led the city to become a primary port of entry for German immigrants. Some estimates suggest that as many as twenty million Americans of German descent can trace their heritage to an ancestor passing through Baltimore's Locust Point Immigration Arrival Center.
        On January 21, 1867, the B&O Railroad signed an agreement with the north German Lloyd Steamship Company to jointly recruit and transport immigrants from Bremerhaven to Baltimore. A successful Baltimore businessman, German immigrant Albert Schumacher, was instrumental in arranging the partnership between railroad and steamship company. The son of a Bremen city counselor, he became a consul general for Bremen and Hamburg while on the board of the railroad.
        In 1868, Garrett executed an agreement with the steamship company to provide regular service to Baltimore. Exports from Baltimore would go to Bremen, and immigrants would come on the return voyage, disembarking at the B&O's newly built immigrant pier. Two-thirds of the immigrants arriving in this fashion purchased a single ticket, which saw them across the ocean and to cities of the western United States. The pier was constructed so that, in many cases, immigrants proceeded directly from the dock to waiting trains.
        The first steamer, the Baltimore, arrived in 1868, carrying passengers and German manufactured goods. It returned to Europe with Maryland tobacco and lumber. In 1869, several steamship companies signed a contract with a Mrs. Koether. She ran a large boardinghouse at the pier where immigrants debarked. For each one she fed and housed, she received 75 cents a day. Over the next fifty years, Koether averaged almost a hundred people a day at her boardinghouse.
        Entry into the city was fairly easy. Doctors and immigration officials boarded the ships as they steamed up the Chesapeake Bay. In New York, people had to land at Castle Garden and Ellis Island to be checked. The B&O had constructed two large buildings at Locust Point that served as terminals for both the steamship lines and the railroad.
        Many who did not take the trains rode ferries across the harbor to Fells Point. The early German and Irish immigrants improved their means there and then moved to other parts of the city. Increasingly, after 1880, Italians came and settled to the west of the point, while Poles settled to the east.
        By 1913, Locust Point was receiving an average of forty thousand immigrants per year. The federal government was building a new immigration center. Just as it was being completed, World War I closed off the flow of immigrants. The building became a military hospital. After the war, there were not enough new arrivals to justify reopening the center.
        The fortunes of the B&O also were gradually overtaken by the changing times. Over the past half-century, the B&O went through a series of mergers. It was finally consumed by CSX Corporation in 1987. Today, 175 years after its inception, you may not have heard of the B&O Railroad unless you are a Baltimorean, railroad fan, historian, or Monopoly player. But the B&O is not forgotten, and its history has been preserved in a remarkable museum.

Celebration and disaster

The B&O’s large terminal at Locust Point in S. Baltimore. Immigrants, having disembarked from the ship that brought them to the U.S., would walk through the pier (in background) to the immigration center within the brick building on the left. From there they would board trains for western destinations. Photo courtesy B&O Railroad Museum.

n March 1884, a new passenger car roundhouse designed by E. Francis Baldwin was completed at Mount Clare. With twenty-two sides, the spectacular structure rose 135 feet and covered nearly one acre. The structure has a 60-foot-wide turntable. The B&O's unique collection of historic railroad locomotives and rolling stock (including Tom Thumb) was restored and displayed at Mount Clare for the B&O's Centenary Exposition--called the "Fair of the Iron Horse"--held in 1927.
        On July 4, 1953, the Roundhouse was reopened as the B&O Transportation Museum. Closed and reopened several times as a cost-saving measure, it was reopened for good in July 1976 as the B&O Railroad Museum as part of America's bicentennial celebration. Plans, started in 1999 according to Courtney Wilson, executive director of the museum, were under way for another Fair of the Iron Horse (scheduled from June 27 through July 6, 2003), as a culmination of the 175th anniversary of the B&O.
        An opening event was held on February 27, 2002. Baltimore's mayor, Martin O'Malley, and other dignitaries participated in the official unveiling of the sixteen-month celebration. Events and educational programs, were scheduled to happen every six to eight weeks. These included "Women on the Railroad," highlighting the roles women played as passengers and employees on the railroad; "Ambassadors of Service," featuring the traditions and roles of African-American railroad employees at work and in society; and even a fall foliage excursion that traveled the original tracks between Baltimore and Frederick, Maryland. Everything was gearing up for the Fair of the Iron Horse 175, a ten-day festival and pageant featuring pavilions dedicated to model railroading, rail travel, railroad history, and technology.
        Then disaster struck. The worst snowstorm in Baltimore's history changed everything.
        In the early morning of February 17, 2003, about one-eighth of the Roundhouse's roof collapsed under the weight of over two feet of snow. By six a.m., half the roof had collapsed. "This incident was one of the most catastrophic in world museum history," Wilson told me. He is only grateful that no one was injured.

My Train, My Home

I loved the B&0 as a child, although my father was not a railroad man and I did not live in Baltimore. I loved it because every summer from the time I was six until I was twelve, basically throughout World War II, I traveled on the Capital Limited from Silver Spring, Maryland, to Chicago and then made the return journey--all by myself.         I remember my first trip at the age of six. At about five p.m., the Capital Limited pulled into the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, and my mother handed me and my small bag--and an envelope with my ticket and several crisp new bills--over to the large, smiling black porter, who assured her that he would "take good care" of me. And so he and his colleagues did, year after year, coming and going.         They made sure I got to my seat. They reserved a place for me in the dining car for dinner and then for breakfast (my favorite meal). They checked to make certain I had enough to do to keep me occupied until bedtime. But that was never a problem: I had my comic books and my silver pistol close by in case any train robbers appeared. Of course, there were the adults sitting next to me and across from me who always asked who I was and where I was going and were astounded to learn I was traveling without my mother or father or anyone. "You mean," they said incredulously, "you're all alone?" And I, the precocious child, replied, "Well, I'm not all alone--there's the porter and you and everyone else on the train."         I never minded going to bed on the Capital Limited. I watched, entranced, as the porter transformed our brightly lit open coach into a dim, green-curtained sleeping car. I always had an upper berth (just like Tarzan), and I lay there gently rocking and listening to the clicking of the rails and the wail of the whistle and thinking of the fun I would have with Grandma Sullivan going to the movies and the amusement park and a White Sox game and playing with Joey next door.         All of a sudden it was morning, and I pulled up the shade to see the flat Illinois land rolling by. I dressed quickly and washed my face just as quickly in the men's room, taking my turn at the basin, to the amusement of the adult men waiting to shave. I always had bacon and eggs for breakfast (as much bacon as I wanted). I remember how heavy the silverware and the glasses and the pitchers of water and coffee were. I don't remember ever paying for breakfast or dinner, but I suspect my porter friend shared the contents of my mother's envelope.         I returned to my seat and picked up my comic book and checked my pistol to see if it was still loaded. Before I knew it, the Capital Limited was slowly moving through the South Side of Chicago, nearly as barren as the far side of the moon, but I didn't mind. I knew that Grandma Sullivan, her eyes sparkling behind her glasses, would be waiting for me at the grand handsome Union Station. When the train stopped, the still smiling porter helped me down the steep metal steps onto the platform. I thanked him and smiled back. I hoped I'd see him again when I rode the Capital Limited, my train, home.

Lee Edwards is a Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

        Because of the disaster, the fair and all related events were canceled. It took a month before curators and museum officials were even allowed into the Roundhouse to assess the damage. The museum remains closed at this time.
        Through it all, Wilson remains optimistic. The brick walls and iron superstructure are basically sound. The collection must be moved so the rest of the roof can be replaced. Then the museum pieces themselves must be taken care of. As he says, "It is difficult to open an art gallery without the works of art."
        Wilson also has hope for the future of railroading and some advice for students. "I would like to encourage high school and college students to look at railroads as a career," he says. "The railroads are entering a period right now where they're moving more goods, making more money, and becoming more high-tech day by day. Yet they struggle to get college and high school graduates to consider rail as a career.
        "Everybody thought the railroads were a great place to work, from the nineteenth century through World War II. But now they are disappearing, invisible. They're begging for good people, even in the IT field. It is still a great career, even for those not going to college. There are freight conductors and engineers and lots of technical training available.
        "Over the next ten to twenty years, I think the railroads will become more a part of the fabric of visible American life. There are real opportunities here for students to think about something they may not ordinarily think about. I'm hoping there is a maglev train built between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
        "I've even written that this country might not have become the social-economic power it is if it weren't for a group of Baltimore merchants taking a risk. I believe that the time has come for this city and state to pay homage to those who took that risk and approach this and future challenges in similar spirit."
        Americans take transportation for granted. Hop in a car or taxi, head to an airport (even complain about the ten-minute wait in the check-in line), and within six hours you can be three thousand miles away. But it wasn't always so. In 1820 it could take six hours by horse-drawn stagecoach to go the forty miles from Washington to Baltimore. New York to Philadelphia was an all-day trip. Roads were dusty, rutted paths in dry weather, rivers of mud when it rained. Human modes of transport had changed little since Roman times. The railroad changed everything.
        It is interesting that this year we also celebrate the centenary of the Ford Motor Car Company and the hundredth anniversary of powered flight. This extraordinary century has included space and lunar exploration, but railroads were the first important technical innovation in land travel and are still in use today. Over 40 percent of the freight shipped throughout the United States is carried by rail. We owe it to ourselves and our children to remember what the early railroad pioneers did in taking a chance on an untested mode of transportation.

        Additional Reading
        James D. Dilts, The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore & Ohio, The Nation's First Railroad, 1828--1853, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1993.
        Herbert H. Harwood Jr., Impossible Challenge: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in Maryland, Bernard Roberts, Baltimore, 1979.
        -Impossible Challenge II: The Odyssean Saga of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Baltimore to Washington and Harpers Ferry From 1828 to 1994, Bernard Roberts, Baltimore, 1994.
        Timothy Jacobs, ed., The History of the Baltimore & Ohio: America's First Railroad, Crown, New York, 1989.

William S. Connery is a Current Issues editor at the The World & I . His previously published essays on Baltimore history include discussion of Frederick Douglass' life in the city, the Locust Point immigration center, the death of Edgar Allan Poe, and Polish caroling traditions in Fells Point. He wishes to thank Courtney Wilson and others at the B&O Museum for their immeasurable assistance, provided in the aftermath of the snow-related disaster at the museum complex.