Baltimore Facts

Overview

CITIES

Baltimore

BALTIMORE

From Doomed Town to Charm City

From the beginning Baltimore has beaten the odds. One British admiral quipped that "Baltimore is a doomed town" when troops set upon Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. American forces proved him wrong by successfully holding their stronghold there, and one witness to the battle, Francis Scott Key, wrote "The Star Spangled Banner" in honor of the surprising defense.

Established in 1729 for the tobacco, flour milling, and sugar trades, Baltimore used its location on the Chesapeake Bay to become renowned for shipbuilding and the shipping industry. Today more than 30 million tons of cargo pass through the Port of Baltimore annually, making it the 5th largest port in the country.

The city established a pattern of rebuilding. In 1860 Baltimore was the second largest city in the U.S. But it suffered huge losses through the Civil War and wouldn't rebound until the late 19th century, when the railroad boom brought commerce back. After the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in a mere 30 hours, the city rebuilt again. Following the ruin of the 1930s Depression, it rebounded in the 1950s. Then, as in many cities, the 1960s brought rising crime and decaying neighborhoods.The Inner Harbor waterfront became notorious for drug dealing and prostitution, and riots after Martin Luther King's assassination destroyed whole neighborhoods.

The past 20 years show similar periods of downturn and revitalization. Baltimore lost 17% of its population over the past two decades; families moved to the suburbs, poverty rates increased, and manufacturing jobs drained from the city. But renewal efforts in the 1980s revived the Inner Harbor through Harborplace-a waterfront complex of restaurants and retail with a lively public arts scene-and the opening of the Baltimore Aquarium. Despite economic problems and a rise in drug crime in the 1990s, in 1992 the city opened Oriole Park at Camden Yards, an in-town ballpark that preserved an 1898 B&O Warehouse as part of its overall design, and that became a model for downtown stadiums across the country.