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Mount Clare Station: then and now

August 1936 vs 2006 · Baltimore, MD

Mount Clare Station, 2006Mount Clare Station, August 1936
NowThen
Then, August 1936A survey photograph from 1936 of the old station building, with a round-roofed building behind it.Photo: E. H. Pickering (Historic American Buildings Survey) · Public domain · Source · resized, cropped
Today, 2006The museum's round building with its dome, next to the old station.Photo: Reading Tom · CC BY 2.0 · Source · resized

The story

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began America's first railroad here in 1829. The first regular passenger service started on May 22, 1830, when a horse-drawn train traveled 13 miles to Ellicott Mills, now Ellicott City.

On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse's telegraph carried the first message, "What hath God wrought?", from Washington, D.C. to this site. The museum opened in 1953 and now has the largest collection of 19th-century locomotives in the country.

The station and the museum were named a National Historic Landmark in 1961. In 2021, the National Park Service added the Mount Clare Station building to its Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, because freedom seekers used the B&O Railroad on their journeys.

Did you know? The first regular passenger train here was pulled by horses.
Historians argue about this. Old survey notes call the building "erected 1830", but Wikipedia says the brick Mount Clare Station standing today was constructed in 1851.

Fact or tall tale?

Sources

More: Look for historic photos at the Library of Congress

Stamp it in person

Go there, answer the question that only someone standing at Mount Clare Station can answer, and add the stamp to your passport. Free, no sign-up.

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More in Baltimore

Next: Washington Monument. Written from the cited sources, not yet walked on site unless noted.