Existing comment:
Port of Baltimore
Gwynns Falls Trail
Baltimore was a late bloomer in colonial America. Chartered in 1729, the port grew rapidly after the Revolutionary War to become by 1800 the new nation's third largest city. The harbor proved ideal for shipping grain from Central Maryland and flour from the Ellicott mills along the Patapsco River and the Gwynns Falls. Highways and then railroads linked Ohio River Valley farms and Pennsylvania coalfields with the port. Shipbuilding flourished with a succession of Baltimore Clippers, steamboats, and Liberty ships. The port lost its prominence in the trucking era after World War II. Shipping and industrial operations moved from the Inner to Outer Harbor, and the waterfront underwent a residential and commercial transformation.
"Whether the city of Baltimore was located by accident or design,…(it is) the best of any Atlantic cities for residence, commerce, trade, and manufacture."
-- J. Thomas Scharf, 1881. |