Maryland's National Register Properties

Photo credit: MHT Files, n.d.

Hollins-Roundhouse Historic District

Inventory No.: B-5144

Date Listed: 7/22/2009

Location: Baltimore, Baltimore City

Category: District

Period/Date of Construction: 1835-1945

Resources: 254 (194 contributing, 13 non-contributing)

Description: The Hollins-Roundhouse Historic District is a primarily residential area located directly north of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s Mount Clare yard and shops on W. Pratt Street in Baltimore. The district is characterized by a variety of rowhouse forms typical of Baltimore during the 19th century. The area began to be developed soon after the railroad began its car building operations at Mount Clare in the mid-1830s. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had begun in 1828, with the goal of laying a railroad line to the Ohio River. The first 26 miles of track were open from Mount Clare to Ellicott’s Mills by May, 1830, inaugurating the first regular railroad service. By December 1831, the railroad had been completed to Frederick. A branch line running between Relay and Washington, D.C. opened in 1835, and a year later the railroad builders reached Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. When the fledgling engine and car shops opened along Pratt Street in the early 1830s, the men working there had to travel from the developed parts of Baltimore east of Fremont Street. Many lived in the area north of Old St. Paul’s graveyard and south of the new Lexington Market, west of Greene Street. The earliest houses in the district were built along Hollins and Schroeder streets beginning in 1833, and were 2 ½ stories in height. Fine examples of other houses of this type, built in 1839, still exist on the south side of Hollins Street, west of Schroeder, part of the Union Square National Register Historic District. Only a few blocks north, the struggling poet Edgar Allan Poe was living with his aunt, Maria Clemm, at this same time in an even smaller 2 ½-story house at 203 N. Amity Street, now open to the public as the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Other 2 ½-story houses of this period survive on the north side of W. Lombard Street, extending east from Arlington Street to the mid-block of Amity Street (at 943-49 and 930-50 W. Lombard Street, built by James Dixon in 1838) in the Hollins-Roundhouse Historic District, as well as in the nearby Pigtown National Register District. So many new rows of 2 ½-story houses went up in the immediate neighborhood of the Mount Clare yards that in 1836 the growing community petitioned the city council to open a city market in the area—the Hollins Market—that is still flourishing. The late 1830s and 1840s saw tremendous growth of the facilities at the B&O’s Mount Clare yards as the railroad reached even further west—to Harper’s Ferry in 1836, Cumberland in 1842, and Wheeling, West Virginia in 1853. In 1835 locomotive builder and inventor Ross Winans took over the Mount Clare engine building shops and over the next decade produced a whole new class of locomotives capable of hauling heavier loads, especially the massive amounts of coal being brought to the port of Baltimore from Western Maryland, after the B&O reached Cumberland in 1842. The Mount Clare station house was built in 1851 on the southwest corner of Pratt and Poppleton streets as an adjunct to the shop expansion going on in preparation for opening the line to Wheeling. Within only a few years, the B&O had linked with two Ohio railroads to offer passage through to Cincinnati and St. Louis. By this time, the railroad operated 45-50 freight locomotives. Two passenger trains also left each day from Wheeling; one ran to Frederick and two to Ellicott’s Mills. By the fall of 1857, the B&O boasted “the largest fleet of any railroad in America,” with 236 locomotives, 124 passenger cars (many of which were painted yellow), and 3,668 freight cars. At the same time the number of both Irish and German immigrants in Baltimore was changing the face of the city. Fleeing the Irish potato famine and economic and political unrest in Germany, immigrants flooded into Baltimore looking for work just as the railroad was expanding. The majority of the houses in the central portion of the district are modest in scale and were built in the 1840s and early 1850s to accommodate this infl

Significance: The Hollins-Roundhouse Historic District is historically significant for its association with the early development of rail transportation. The area was the primary location, in the middle of the 19th century, of houses and services for the employees of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s Mount Clare yards and car-building shops. From its inception in 1828, the nation’s first railroad quickly expanded its locomotive and car-building shops just south of this historic area on West Pratt Street, at the same time that it was laying track steadily westward in service of its company directors’ goal to reach the Ohio River. The district derives additional significance for its association with ethnic immigration to Baltimore in the 19th century. In the 1840s and 1850s, the area was one of the centers of Irish and German immigration into the city. Both groups settled initially in Fells Point, where their ships docked, but gradually made their way north and west to newly developing areas like Hollins-Roundhouse, where they built important churches, schools, and institutional buildings. The Irish Catholic church, St. Peter the Apostle, built in 1843 in the Greek Revival style by a prominent local architect, is already listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Later, beginning in the 1880s and continuing through the 1920s, the district became established as the center of Baltimore’s immigrant Lithuanian community. The area gains architectural significance because so much housing and church architecture remains from the key developmental period of the 1840s and 1850s—a period that saw the development of three new forms of vernacular residential architecture designed to be affordable for working-class families. As both Irish and German immigrants flocked to the area to find jobs with the railroad or in nearby car-building shops, speculative builders erected row after row of two-story-and-attic houses in the late 1840s; rows of three-story, two-bay-wide gable-roofed houses in the early 1850s; and much smaller two-story, gable-roofed “alley houses” built at the same time. The area also provides an excellent example of the way in which most Baltimore city blocks were developed in the 19th century to offer a range of sizes and prices of housing, so that people of varying economic means could live in the same area. The district contains several blocks of large, stylish Greek Revival and Italianate townhouses. At the opposite end of the spectrum, most of the alley streets that bisect each block in the historic district are intact, often with surviving housing reflecting the small two-story “alley house” and “half-house” types.

District Resources (254) (194 contributing, 13 non-contributing)

From associated listing in National Register nomination form. C = Contributing, NC = non-contributing, blank = not evaluated.

Address	Status	Resource Name and MIHP (if any)
907-909 W. Baltimore Street (907-921 W. Baltimore Street)	C
911 W. Baltimore Street (907-921 W. Baltimore Street)	C
913 W. Baltimore Street (907-921 W. Baltimore Street)	C
915 W. Baltimore Street (907-921 W. Baltimore Street)	C
924 Hollins Street	C
3-13 S. Schroeder Street	C
11-13 S. Poppleton Street and 848 Hollins Street	C	B-2658 -- St. Peter the Apostle Church & Supporting Buildings
808 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
814 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
826-830 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
832-834 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
818-820 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
822 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
816 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
812 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
806 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
804 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)	C
928-950 W. Lombard Street (926-950 W. Lombard Street)	C
926 W. Lombard Street (926-950 W. Lombard Street)	C
924 W. Lombard Street (900-924 W. Lombard Street)	C
918-922 W. Lombard Street (900-924 W. Lombard Street)	C
916 W. Lombard Street (900-924 W. Lombard Street)	C
914 W. Lombard Street (900-924 W. Lombard Street)	C
908-912 W. Lombard Street (900-924 W. Lombard Street)	C
900-906 W. Lombard Street (900-924 W. Lombard Street)	C
40-42 S. Poppleton Street (40-46 S. Poppleton Street)	C
861 Hollins Street (859-871 Hollins Street)	C
859 Hollins Street (859-871 Hollins Street)	C
863-865 Hollins Street (859-871 Hollins Street)	C
867 Hollins Street (859-871 Hollins Street)	C
869 Hollins Street (859-871 Hollins Street)	C
871 Hollins Street (859-871 Hollins Street)	C
868-870 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
872 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
872 1/2 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
874 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
878 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
878 1/2 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
880 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
876 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
16-22 S. Poppleton Street	C	B-2649 -- St. Peter's School
6 S. Poppleton Street (6-14 S. Poppleton Street)	C
894-896 W. Lombard Street (886-898 W. Lombard Street)	C
890-892 W. Lombard Street (886-898 W. Lombard Street)	C
884 1/2-886 W. Lombard Street (886-898 W. Lombard Street)	C
888-888 1/2 W. Lombard Street (886-898 W. Lombard Street)	C
882-884 W. Lombard Street (868-884 W. Lombard Street)	C
38-44 S. Parkin Street	C
825 Hollins Street (823-837 Hollins Street)	C
851-853 Hollins Street	C	B-2714 -- Lithuanian Hall
847-849 Hollins Street (839-849 Hollins Street)	C
845 Hollins Street (839-849 Hollins Street)	C
837 Hollins Street (823-837 Hollins Street)	C
835 Hollins Street (823-837 Hollins Street)	C
829-831 Hollins Street (823-837 Hollins Street)	C
833 Hollins Street (823-837 Hollins Street)	C
827 Hollins Street (823-837 Hollins Street)	C
823 Hollins Street (823-837 Hollins Street)	C
817-819 Hollins Street (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)	C
821 Hollins Street (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)	C
811 Hollins Street (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)	C
813 Hollins Street (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)	C
815 Hollins Street (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)	C
807-809 Hollins Street (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)	C
18-36 S. Parkin Street (857 Hollins Street and 20-36 S. Parkin Street)	C
33-37 S. Poppleton Street	C	B-2693 -- Lion Brothers, Inc.
875 Hollins Street	C	B-5093 -- Lion Brothers Company Building
39-45 S. Poppleton Street (39-47 S. Poppleton Street)	C
47 S. Poppleton Street (39-47 S. Poppleton Street)	C
877 Boyd Street (865-877 Boyd Street)	C
839-843 Hollins Street (839-849 Hollins Street)	C
907 Hollins Street (901-907 Hollins Street)	C
864 W. Lombard Street (842 1/2-866 W. Lombard Street)	C	B-2712 -- St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church Rectory
866 W. Lombard Street (842 1/2-866 W. Lombard Street)	C
856 W. Lombard Street (842 1/2-866 W. Lombard Street)	C
850-854 W. Lombard Street (842 1/2-866 W. Lombard Street)	C
1236-1238 W. Pratt Street (1226-1244 W. Pratt Street)	C
1226-1234 W. Pratt Street (1226-1244 W. Pratt Street)	C
1220 W. Pratt Street (1202-1224 W. Pratt Street)	C
1222 W. Pratt Street (1202-1224 W. Pratt Street)	C
1214-1218 W. Pratt Street (1202-1224 W. Pratt Street)	C
1204-1208 W. Pratt Street (1202-1224 W. Pratt Street)	C
1202 W. Pratt Street (1202-1224 W. Pratt Street)	C
108-118 S. Carrollton Avenue (106-122 S. Carrollton )	C
102-104 S. Carrollton Avenue	C
120 S. Carrollton Avenue (106-122 S. Carollton Avenue)	C
122 S. Carrollton Avenue (106-122 S. Carollton Avenue)	C
1211-1215 W. Lombard Street (1201-1223 W. Lombard Street)	C
1217-1223 W. Lombard Street (1201-1223 W. Lombard Street)	C
1203 W. Lombard Street (1201-1223 W. Lombard Street)	C
1205-1209 W. Lombard Street (1201-1223 W. Lombard Street)	C
1247 W. Lombard Street (1225-1247 W. Lombard Street)	C
1239-1245 W. Lombard Street (1225-1247 W. Lombard Street)	C
1237 W. Lombard Street (1225-1247 W. Lombard Street)	C
1225-1235 W. Lombard Street (1225-1247 W. Lombard Street)	C
103-109; 113-115 S. Carey Street (103-119 Carey Street)	C
1126-1136 W. Pratt Street (1126-1144 W. Pratt Street)	C
1138-1144 W. Pratt Street (1126-1144 W. Pratt Street)	C
1124 W. Pratt Street (1100-1124 W. Pratt Street)	C	B-2730 -- Jerusalem Soul Seeking Baptist Church
1120-1122 W. Pratt Street (1100-1124 W. Pratt Street)	C
1100-1112 W. Pratt Street (1100-1124 W. Pratt Street)	C
1114 W. Pratt Street	C
1116-1118 W. Pratt Street	C
114-128 S. Arlington Avenue (100-128 S. Arlington Avenue)	C
104-112 S. Arlington Avenue (100-128 S. Arlington Avenue)	C
100-102 S. Arlington Avenue (100-128 S. Arlington Avenue)	C
1103-1111 W. Lombard Street (1103-1117 W. Lombard Street)	C
1113-1117 W. Lombard Street (1103-1117 W. Lombard Street)	C
1119-1123 W. Lombard Street (1119-1141 W. Lombard Street)	C
1125-1127 W. Lombard Street (1119-1141 W. Lombard Street)	C
1129 W. Lombard Street (1119-1141 W. Lombard Street)	C
1131-1141 W. Lombard Street (1119-1141 W. Lombard Street)	C
105-131 S. Carrollton Avenue	C
104-108 S. Carlton Street (102-112 S. Carlton Street)	C
110-112 S. Carlton Street (102-112 S. Carlton Street)	C
104-112 S. Carlton Street	C	B-4999 -- Alley Houses
118-124 S. Carlton Street	C
1005-1015 (originally 1103-1117) W. Lombard Street (1003-1037 W. Lombard Street)	C
101 S. Arlington Avenue (101-125 S. Arlington Avenue)	C
103-111 S. Arlington Avenue (101-125 S. Arlington Avenue)	C
104-112 S. Stockton Street	C	B-4993 -- Alley Houses
104-120 S. Stockton Street (104-126 S. Stockton Street)	C
126 S. Stockton Street (104-126 S. Stockton Street)	C
1023 W. Lombard Street (1003-1037 W. Lombard Street)	C
113-125 S. Arlington Avenue (101-125 S. Arlington Avenue)	C
104 S. Schroeder Street (100-138 S. Schroeder Street)	C
106 S. Schroeder Street (100-138 S. Schroeder Street)	C
108-114 S. Schroeder Street (100-138 S. Schroeder Street)	C
116-120 S. Schroeder Street (100-138 S. Schroeder Street)	C
122-126 S. Schroeder Street (100-138 S. Schroeder Street)	C
128-138 S. Schroeder Street (100-138 S. Schroeder Street)	C
1002-1006 W. Pratt Street (1000-1018 W. Pratt Street)	C
1008-1018 W. Pratt Street (1000-1018 W. Pratt Street)	C
north side of Pratt Street, east of Arlington Street (1020 W. Pratt Street)	C	B-2741 -- Montgomery Ward Clothing Factory and Warehouse (Baltimore Envelope Company)
100 S. Poppleton Street (100-116 S. Poppleton Street)	C
102-106 S. Poppleton Street (100-116 S. Poppleton Street)	C
108-110 S. Poppleton Street (100-116 S. Poppleton Street)	C
112 S. Poppleton Street (100-116 S. Poppleton Street)	C
114-116 S. Poppleton Street (100-116 S. Poppleton Street)	C
903-919 W. Lombard Street	C
926-934 W. Pratt Street (916-934 W. Pratt Street)	C
916-920 W. Pratt Street (916-934 W. Pratt Street)	C
922-924 W. Pratt Street (916-934 W. Pratt Street)	C
125 S. Schroeder Street (113-131 S. Schroeder Street)	C
127-129 S. Schroeder Street (113-131 S. Schroeder Street)	C
131 S. Schroeder Street (113-131 S. Schroeder Street)	C	B-2750 -- Patrick's
113-121 S. Schroeder Street (113-131 S. Schroeder Street)	C
905-915 Lemmon Street (905-917 Lemmon Street)	C
929-941 W. Lombard Street (921-949 W. Lombard Street)	C
943-949 W. Lombard Street (921-949 W. Lombard Street)	C
902-916 Lemmon Street (902-922 Lemmon Street)	C
918-920 Lemmon Street (902-922 Lemmon Street)	C	B-2753 -- Irish Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum
932-938 Lemmon Street	C	B-5015 -- Alley Houses
854-862 W. Pratt Street	C
830-852 W. Pratt Street	C
101-103 S. Poppleton Street (101-117 S. Poppleton Street)	C
105-107 S. Poppleton Street (101-117 S. Poppleton Street)	C
111-113 S. Poppleton Street (101-117 S. Poppleton Street)	C
115-117 S. Poppleton Street (101-117 S. Poppleton Street)	C
119-123 S. Poppleton Street	C
125-127 S. Poppleton Street (125-141 S. Poppleton Street)	C
131-135 S. Poppleton Street (125-141 S. Poppleton Street)	C
889 and 895 W. Lombard Street (889-897 W. Lombard Street)	C
891-893 W. Lombard Street (889-897 W. Lombard Street)	C
897 W. Lombard Street (889-897 W. Lombard Street)	C
887 W. Lombard Street (871-887 W. Lombard Street)	C
883 W. Lombard Street (871-887 W. Lombard Street)	C
885 W. Lombard Street (871-887 W. Lombard Street)	C
879-881 W. Lombard Street (871-887 W. Lombard Street)	C
877-877 1/2 W. Lombard Street (871-887 W. Lombard Street)	C
875 W. Lombard Street (871-887 W. Lombard Street)	C
871-873 W. Lombard Street (871-887 W. Lombard Street)	C
862-864 Lemmon Street	C	B-5021 -- Alley Houses
862-864 Lemmon Street (862-876 Lemmon Street)	C
110 Parkin Street (104-116 Parkin Street)	C
102-104 Parkin Street (104-116 Parkin Street)	C
112 Parkin Street (104-116 Parkin Street)	C
104-108 S. Callender Street (104-126 S. Callender Street)	C	B-5019 -- Alley Houses
110-112 S. Callender Street (104-126 S. Callender Street)	C	B-5019 -- Alley Houses
124-126 S. Callender Street (104-126 S. Callender Street)	C	B-5019 -- Alley Houses
107-109 S. Callender Street	C	B-5018 -- Alley Houses
107-109 S. Callender Street (107-119 S. Callendar Street)	C
111-113 S. Callender Street (107-119 S. Callendar Street)	C
877 Lemmon Street (875-891 Lemmon Street)	C
105-107 S. Parkin Street (105-133 Parkin Street)	C
115-129 S. Parkin Street (105-133 Parkin Street)	C
855 1/2 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
857 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
859-861 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
863 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
863 1/2 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
865 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
867 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
869 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)	C
851-871 Lemmon Street (854-856 Lemmon Street and 855-873 Lemmon Street and 120 Hayes Street)	NC	B-2775 -- Cross Roads Apartments
818-826 W. Pratt Street (802-828 W. Pratt Street)	NC
116-122 S. Callender Street (104-126 S. Callender Street)	NC	B-5019 -- Alley Houses
840 Hollins Street	NC
intersection of Lemmon Street and Amity Street (928-944 Lemmon Street and 104-106 S. Amity Street)	NC
NW corner of W. Pratt Street and Poppleton Street (118-134 S. Poppleton Street and 906-910, 914 W. Pratt Street)	NC	B-2748 -- Park
NE corner of Pratt Street and Amity Street	NC
1025-1037 W. Lombard Street (1003-1037 W. Lombard Street)	NC
1240 W. Pratt Street (1226-1244 W. Pratt Street)	NC	B-2721 -- Urban Motors
911 Hollins Street	NC	James McHenry Recreation Center
901 Hollins Street (901-907 Hollins Street)	NC	B-2651 -- House of Mercy
east of 924 Hollins Street (north side Hollins Street, east Amity Street)	NC	John Cowan Funeral Home garage
31 S. Schroeder Street	NC	B-2655 -- McHenry Elementary School Recreation Center (Public School No. 10, site)
900-914 Hollins Street
Lemmon Street (Alley off S. Carlton Street)		B-2738 -- Carlton Street Arabber Stable (The Cal-Sino Corporation Building)
103-111 S. Schroeder Street
1005-1007 Holton Alley
908-942 Booth Street
2-8 S. Amity Street
917-921 W. Baltimore Street (907-921 W. Baltimore Street)
923-937 W. Baltimore Street
901 W. Baltimore Street
903-905 W. Baltimore Street
939-947 W. Baltimore Street
44-46 S. Poppleton Street (40-46 S. Poppleton Street)
810 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)
824 Hollins Street (804-834 Hollins Street)
903-905 (901-907 Hollins Street)
8-14 S. Poppleton Street (6-14 S. Poppleton Street)
37-39 S. Parkin Street
898 W. Lombard Street (886-898 W. Lombard Street)
801-805 Hollins Street (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)
34-40 S. Freemont Avenue (801-821 Hollins Street and 34-40 S. Freemont Avenue)
836 Hollins Street
1210-1212 and 1224 W. Pratt Street (1202-1224 W. Pratt Street)
858 W. Lombard Street (842 1/2-866 W. Lombard Street)
860-862 W. Lombard Street (842 1/2-866 W. Lombard Street)
842 1/2-848 W. Lombard Street (842 1/2-866 W. Lombard Street)
865-875 Boyd Street (865-877 Boyd Street)
117-119 S. Carey Street (103-119 S. Carey Street)
100-102 S. Schroeder Street (100-138 S. Schroeder Street)
1242-1244 W. Pratt Street (1226-1244 W. Pratt Street)
122-124 S. Stockton Street (104-126 S. Stockton Street)
105-121 S. Stockton Street
1003 and 1019-1021 W. Lombard Street (1003-1037 W. Lombard Street)
107-121 S. Carlton Street
102 S. Carlton Street (102-112 S. Carlton Street)
919-939 Lemmon Street
937-939 Lemmon Street
922 Lemmon Street (902-922 Lemmon Street)
902-920 Lemmon Street		B-5014 -- Alley Houses
921-927 W. Lombard Street (921-949 W. Lombard Street)
106-108 and 114-116 Parkin Street (104-116 Parkin Street)
131-133 Parkin Street (105-133 Parkin Street)
875 and 879-891 Lemmon Street (875-891 Lemmon Street)
115-119 S. Callender Street (107-119 S. Callendar Street)
866-876 Lemmon Street (862-876 Lemmon Street)
129 and 137-141 S. Poppleton Street (125-141 S. Poppleton Street)
855 W. Lombard Street (855-869 W. Lombard Street)
802-816 and 828 W. Pratt Street (802-828 W. Pratt Street)

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