Thursday, December 20, 2012
There's still time to pay a visit to Santa this Saturday and Sunday at the Holiday House.
- THE NEIGHBORHOOD FILES
- Dianne Burch
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Thursday, December 20, 2012
On Friday, Jan. 3, 1947, the Herald Argus and Baltimore Countian ran this photo with the following caption: “More than a hundred members of Brownie and Intermediate Girl Scout Troops of the Catonsville area gathered at the community tree and the fire-police building on the afternoon of December 24 to sing Christmas carols. The tuneful and colorful event took place between 4 and 4:30 p.m. Singing was led by Mrs. James D. Booth of Oak Hill Road. The affair was one of the highlights of the Christmas celebration here.” That was 55 years ago and Catonsville residents are still enjoying Christmas festivities in the heart of the village. This year marked the 19th annual Tree Lighting Ceremony the Saturday after Thanksgiving next door to the …
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The rambling wooden structure stood on the site now occupied by the Bloomsbury Community Center.
- THE NEIGHBORHOOD FILES
- Dianne Burch
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Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Prior to the Rolling Road Golf Club, which opened with a nine-hole golf course in 1919, the summer residents of Catonsville enjoyed a country club set on 18 acres of property sold for the purpose by John L. Glenn, one of the community’s largest landholders. While it was known as the Catonsville Casino, there was no gambling. Indeed, there was no golf either. When the club opened on May 12, 1894, The Sun reported: “The grounds cover eight acres and are situated near Catonsville, fronting on Bloomsbury lane, at the terminus of the Catonsville Short Line Railroad. They are laid off for baseball, cricket, tennis and lacrosse, with a winter tennis court made of crushed stone. The cost of grading the grounds and of erecting the Casino was $42,…
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Enterprising businessman seizes the reins of delivery business.
- THE NEIGHBORHOOD FILES
- Dianne Burch
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012
In a day when we routinely use FedEx to zip packages to distant destinations overnight, time was when just getting a package a distance of 12 miles was no easy task. Enter James H. Gaither, who, in 1894, started the Gaither’s City & Suburban Express Co., a horse-drawn covered wagon package service. It made daily runs from Ellicott City to South Howard Street in Baltimore, with stops at the train depot and Smith’s Corner in Catonsville. The depot is near the corner of Mellor Avenue and Frederick Road, just behind the CCCS Building, and the starting point for the Catonsville Short Line Railroad, which snaked its way to the main Pennsylvania R.R. line east of Loudon Park Cemetery. Smith’s Corner is mentioned in the accompanying ad and refers …
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
The entire public school population fit in one building at the turn of the 20th century.
- THE NEIGHBORHOOD FILES
- Dianne Burch
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Tuesday, September 4, 2012
There was a time when the entire second grade for all of Catonsville numbered a mere 31 students. Seems hard to believe. In this photo, c. 1902, the second grade class is lined up outside of the public school located on Winters Lane. John Gittings donated a lot on Winters Lane near Melrose Avenue where a one-story building was erected in 1878, added to an 1859 frame schoolhouse. It was enlarged to a three-story brick building in 1898. The following year, a four-year high school program began in the same building, with its first graduating class in 1903. The building remained in use as a public school until 1910, when a new school was built on Frederick Road near Bloomsbury Avenue. St. Mark’s Catholic School began using the building for …
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Victorian cottage served as idyllic sentinel to hospital grounds.
What is today known as Spring Grove Hospital Center, a 426-bed facility located on a 200-acre campus in Catonsville, has a storied history dating to 1797. That makes Spring Grove the second oldest continuously operating psychiatric hospital in the country. It was established by the state of Maryland at a time when the predominant mode for the care of the mentally ill was largely one of confinement. David S. Helsel, current chief executive officer, and Trevor Blank, a graduate student at Indiana University’s Folklore Institute, co-authored a pictorial history book, Spring Grove State Hospital, published in 2008 as part of Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series. Many of the photographs featured in that book reside in the library’s …
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
This Frederick Road spot offered prime viewing area for the Fourth of July festivities.
Parade watchers thronged the storefront from sidewalk to second-story porch to rooftop on 818 Frederick Road, in what is now home to Objects Found. In 1982, when this photograph was taken, the US Armed Forces Recruiting Center occupied the space. This year marks the 66th Annual Catonsville Fourth of July Parade. When Marie O’Dea, editor of the Catonsville Herald-Argus, had the idea for a parade, she put it together with the help of a committee in just four weeks. After watching a small Memorial Day parade, she thought it was time to add an Independence Day Parade to entice Catonsville residents to stay in town Of course, the parade was considerably smaller. But still, it had entries that were judged and fireworks that the July 11 edition …
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Entrepreneur James Stoddard served up jousting tourneys along with dining and dancing.
Lifelong Catonsville resident James Stoddard seemed destined to the field of transportation and its offshoots. His grandfather drove a stagecoach from Cumberland to Baltimore. His father drove the horses when horse cars began making the trip from Baltimore, the first of which arrived on Oct. 6, 1862. According to a newspaper account in 1951, “His father… moved to Catonsville to be near the big horse barn which then stood beside the hotel.” By age 15, Stoddard himself was driving the double-team horse car between Baltimore and the terminal barn on Frederick Road opposite Montrose Avenue. Some years later, Stoddard personally operated the Terminal Hotel—located where Matthews 1600 now stands—from 1895 until the outbreak of World War I in …
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
America’s first African-American man of science made his home in Oella.
The undated poster was likely produced circa 1989, the year Baltimore County established the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park, as the Friends support group was established by that time. Since no area code is included, it must have been prior to 1991, the year area codes were introduced. In 1983, the Maryland Historical Trust conducted an archeological survey and located the home’s site. Additional testing in 1985 and 1986 confirmed the findings. The dig revealed details about 18th century rural life-style, with particular emphasis on the life of free blacks in the area. Benjamin Banneker was born a free black in Baltimore County in 1731, to parents Mary and Robert. When he was six years old, his father purchased 100 acres of land, and …
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Sergeant Martin Doyle congratulated by King and Queen of England while in training there.
With Memorial Day soon upon us, we turn our attention to one of the men who gave his own life so that a fellow soldier could live. According to a news story published in The Sun on Jan. 8, 1919, the mother of Sgt. Meredith Dunkerly reported that her son, who is recovering from multiple wounds in a hospital in New York, stated that “in the latter part of September their tank was struck by an antitank gun and disabled. In abandoning it Sergeant Dunkerley was picked off by a sniper and fell wounded. Sergeant [Martin] Doyle carried him to a shell hole through an intense shellfire and to the trenches, but returned shortly afterward to carry him in.” While rendering assistance, Doyle was struck with a hand grenade and killed instantly. Dunkerley…
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Hunt Cup, Preakness and Devon Horse Show breed tradition to this day.
It’s spring and our thoughts turn to horses and the long-standing traditions surrounding them in Maryland. The 118th Hunt Cup steeplechase race was run on April 28 and Pimlico Race Course will host the 137th Preakness Stakes, the second leg in the Triple Crown, on May 19. Pimlico is the second oldest racetrack in the nation, behind Saratoga, in New York. The Hunt Cup has an equally storied past. According to its website, “In 1894, the members of the Elkridge Fox Hunting Club challenged the members of Green Spring Valley Hounds to a timber race: the first Hunt Cup. Although the first race was limited to members of the two clubs, the next year the race was opened to all fox hunting clubs in Maryland, and in 1903, members from recognized …
Sharon Stanton
11:21 am on Thursday, November 15, 2012
attended the junior high school - early 1960 and remember having to go outside to the cafeteria for lunch and it was housed in that building. Article is fascinating. Thank you. more ›