Chapter 1: Introduction

The purpose of this web collection is to a create sketch of early Roland Park, Baltimore. This is done by presenting a series of side-by-side photographs, old and new, of this well preserved historic neighborhood and its environs. The original project was two years in the making, 2008-2010. It was hosted at the Roland Park Civic League's website, RolandPark.org, of which I was at the time the webmaster. That section of the RolandPark.org site is now defunct. Its place is now taken by this new, enlarged version of the collection, now kindly hosted by the University of Baltimore. This second edition of the collection is considerably larger in scope than was the first, both in terms of the number of photos and subpages and in terms of its geographic reach. The photos in this edition extend beyond Roland Park's boundaries, well into Ruxton in Baltimore County.

In 2015, Arcadia Publishing was good enough to release my Greater Roland Park, part of its popular Images of America series of books. There is only a small amount of overlap between the photos on this site and those within the book. Between the two, a very comprehensive record may be had of Roland Park through the years. That said, this site is not a history of Roland Park or its surroundings per se, though a considerable amount of history may be learned from reading the captions under the photos. Nor is this an academic undertaking, so sources are not given in text. However, virtually all the sources are listed on this page, below. I have omitted only one or two sources, such as minor newspaper articles.

Within this site, there are some 500 pictures, old and new, along with dozens of map excerpts — far too much information to fit onto one web page. Accordingly, in addition to this launch page, the site is divided into various chapters, by area, as listed below. They appear in the approximate sequence of their development.

• Chapter 1: Introduction (with a bibliographly and with historic maps and aerial photographs).

• Chapter 2: A Trolley Ride through Roland Park and Time (a 1946 amateur movie clip converted to video format).

• Chapter 3: Roland Avenue, the Grand Thoroughfare (including the Boys' Latin School).

• Chapter 4: East (most of Plat 1, Embla Park, Evergreen, Tuxedo Park and points east).

• Chapter 5: West (Plat 2, upper Plat 3 and part of Plat 1).

• Chapter 6: South (Plats 4 and 5, Cold Spring Lane and points south).

• Chapter 7: Northwest (Plat 6, lower Plat 3, Falls Road, the Baltimore Country Club and the golf course).

• Chapter 8: North (Lakeside, New North Roland Park, The Orchards, Poplar Hill and Ruxton).

At the outset of the project, I was determined to match every historic photo absolutely identically, angle for angle and inch for inch. This soon proved impossible. First, in many cases foliage now obscures what a century ago was an open view. Matching a shot identically often produced nothing but a close-up of a bush, while "cheating" and moving five feet to the right or left produced an excellent shot. Second, even where foliage was not a problem, I quickly found it difficult to reproduce old shots exactly without knowing the original photographer's camera lens. Most modern digital cameras take pictures at a standard 3:2 ratio, which is to say that the width of the photo is half as large again as the height. In contrast, many historic photos have a more square shape. I could have cropped the modern photos to match, sometimes, but there seemed little point, as this would simply have reduced the amount of information imparted by the new pictures.

I have made a good-faith effort to contact all entities that I believe to be copyright holders of the various historic images displayed here. Many of these pictures have come fromthe Internet, and discerning ownership has not always been easy. If you own copyright to materials and feel you have not been properly identified, please refer to the Robert L. Bogomolny Library's Digital Collections Takedown Policy.

I am indebted to Barrie Sigler for providing, along with many photos, the superb streetcar footage and to Houpla, Inc. for converting it to a digital format usable by this site. I am also indebted to Leslie Goldsmith and Tony Pinto for allowing me to scan dozens of photos and old magazine pages from their extensive collections of Roland Park memorabilia, to Mac Kennedy for providing many photos historic and modern of the area around Boys' Latin school. Thanks are also due to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum and to Adam Paul; both supplied many streetcar photos and both were generous with their encyclopedic knowledge on that subject. Many photos were made available to me by various area residents, past and present: Joseph M. Coale III, Jim Considine, Steve Corfidi, Christopher Cortright, Daughters of Charity, Judy Dobbs, Judy Eisenhauer, John Hammond, Elinor Howell, Jenny Hughes, Jon Lewin, Anne Ritchie Muth Mommers, Tim Naylor, John H. Pleier, Betsy Smith and David F. Tufaro. Andy Murray allowed me twice to roam around his Brightside Road property taking various "now" photos to match the historic Posey house images that he, himself, had alerted me to. Kathleen and Richard Truelove provided two maps and much advice. Thanks are also due to Kathy Hudson for reviewing the original draft versions of these pages back in 2010. Last but certainly not least, I must express my appreciation to Therese O'Malley, Murray West and Anne C. Stuzin for helping immensely by taking many of the "now" photos, particularly in the "west" section of the site.

Enjoy!

— Douglas P. Munro, Ph.D.
Curator, Roland Park Then And Now
Orig. ed., July 17, 2010
2nd. ed. (Plat 2), May 8, 2022

Credits:

This exhibit was originally created in 2010 by Douglas Munro, PhD. It was recreated in 2023 by Angela Rodgers-Koukoui, MLIS, University of Baltimore Outreach & Engagement Librarian, and Elissa Dallimore, RLB Library Intern.

Sources

Books and Other Documents (Alphabetical)

Anonymous. 1913. “A Residence Section Planned on Nature's Lines.” The American City journal 9 (2), August. Internet site (Google Books).

Anonymous. 1926. "Spring House, Goodloe-Harper Estate, Roland Park, Baltimore." Architectural Forum 45 (1), July.

Anonymous. [c. 1965.] Roland Park Revisited. Baltimore, Md.: H.L. Eikenberg, printer.

Frank S. Arnett. 1902. "American Country Clubs." Munsey's Magazine 27 (4), July.

Baltimore Country Club (BCC). 1998. Baltimore Country Club: One Hundred Years. Baltimore, Md.: BCC.

Gordon Bock. 2011. "Amazing Asphalt: How 1920s Shingle Types and Designs Created the Golden Age of Composition Roofing." Old House Online Journal, June 26.

Eden Unger Bowditch. 2001. Growing Up in Baltimore: A Photographic History. Charlston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing.

Commission for Historical & Architectural Preservation (CHAP), City of Baltimore. 2008. "Roland Park," from CHAP web page, July 7, 2008.

Co-operative Building Plan Association (CBPA). 1897. How to Build, Furnish and Decorate: Shoppell's Modern Houses. New York, N.Y.: CBPA.

Alfred R.L. Dohme. 1949. "Roland Avenue Was a Dirt Road." (Baltimore) Sun Magazine, June 12.

John Engelman. 2004. "The Third Chance Was the Charm." The Live Wire: The Official Newsletter of America's First Downtown Streetcar Museum (i.e., the Baltimore Streetcar Museum).

Wilson Eyre, Jr. 1902. "Two Solutions of the Cottage Problem." The Craftsman (3), November. Internet site (Google Books).

W. Fawcett. 1903. "Roland Park... A Representative American Suburb." House & Garden: A Magazine Devoted to Architecture, Gardens and Decoration 3 (4), April.

Robert M. Fogelson. 2005. Bourgeios Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870-1930. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Sally Foster. 2010. Explore Historic Roland Park: A Walking Tour (pamphlet). Baltimore, Md.: Roland Park Community Foundation, April.

George W. Fuller. 1912. Sewage Disposal. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Book Co., first edition, second impression — corrected.

Charles J. Gill. 1993. "Poplar Hill/North Roland Park: Change and Continuity." Unpublished manuscript posted on University of Baltimore Langsdale Library Special Collections web site (http://archives.ubalt.edu/lhrc/pdf/PoplarHill.pdf).

Brooke Gunning and Molly O'Donovan. 2000. Baltimore's Halcyon Days. Charlston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing.

Eileen Higham. 2004. Tuscany-Canterbury: A Neighborhood History. Baltimore, Md.: Maryland Historical Society.

Jim Holechek. 2004. Baltimore's Two Cross Keys Villages: One Black, One White. New York, N.Y.: iUniverse, Inc.

Betty Ann Schmick Howard (ed.). 2001. A Place in Our Hearts: Roland Park Country School. Baltimore, Md.: Roland Park Country School.

Richard Hubbard Howland and Eleanor Patterson Spencer. 1953. The Architecture of Baltimore: A Pictorial History. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press.

Kathy Hudson. 2005. "Whose House Is It Anyway?" Roland Park News (19), Fall.

Interior (Department of the), United States, Bureau of Education. 1916. "Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States." Bulletin (39).

Juvenile Services (Department of), State of Maryland. 2009. Juvenile Justice in Maryland. Internet site (http://www.djs.state.md.us/history.html).

Jacques Kelly. [n.d.] A Nostalgic Sampler of the Roland Park Shopping Center. Baltimore, Md.: Equitable Bank.

_____. 2009. "JFX Is a Long Stretch of History." Baltimore Sun, February 7.

John W. Leonard (ed.). 1903. Who's Who in America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women of the United States, 1903-1905. Chicago, Ill.: A.N. Marquis & Co.

Karen Lewand. 1989. North Baltimore: From Estate to Development. Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore City Dept. of Planning.

George A. Long (comp. & ed.). 1912. Gray's Telephone Pay Stations, Catalog No. 22. Hartford, Conn.: Gray Telephone Pay Station Co.

Maryland State Archives, State of Maryland. 2009. A Timeline of Benevolent Giving and Humane Goodness. Internet site (http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/speccol/photos/philanthropy/html/timeline2.htm).

Paul McMullen. 2009. "Builder Shares Memories of Kirkleigh Villa and 1926." Catholic Review, November 11.

Jean Mellot. 2009. "Roland Park's Olmsted Legacy." Roland Park News (33), Spring 2009.

Priscilla L. Miles. 1986. Roland Park: Four Walking Tours and an Informal History. Baltimore, Md.: NPS, Inc.

Douglas P. Munro. 2015. Greater Roland Park. Charlston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing.

Roberta M. Moudry. 1990. "Gardens, Houses and People: The Planning of Roland Park, Baltimore." Unpublished master of arts thesis, Cornell University, Ithica, N.Y., January.

Recreation and Parks (Department of), Baltimore County. 2006. Robert E. Lee Park Report. Towson, Md.: DRP, December.

Reg Niles. 1981. Adoption Agencies, Orphanages and Maternity Homes: An Historical Directory. In two volumes. Garden City, N.Y.: Phileas Deigh Corp.

Charles Francis Osborne (ed.). 1907. Country Homes and Gardens of Moderate Cost. Philadelphia, Pa.: John C. Winston Co.

Allison Parker-Abromitis. 2010. "Ooh La La! Petit Louis Turns 10!" Roland Park News (38), Summer.

Adam Paul. 2009. Baltimore Transit Company. Internet site (http://www.btco.net).

Michele Regenold. 2007. "From Waving Arms to LED's: A Brief History of Traffic Signals." University of California, Berkeley Tech Transfer Newsletter, Fall.

[Laura S. Rice]. 1995. "Portfolio." Maryland Historical Magazine (90, 2), Summer.

Roland Park Centennial Committee (RPCC). 1991. Strolling Through Roland Park. Baltimore, Md.: RPCC.

Roland Park Company. Gardens, Houses and People magazine, various editions, 1930s and 1940s.

Roland Park Elementary/Middle School. 2009. Our History. Intenet site (http://rolandparkpublic.org/about-2/our-history).

Roland Park Roads & Maintenance Corp. (RPR&M). 1991. In Celebration of Roland Park: Selections from the Files of the Roland Park Roads and Maintenance Corporation. Baltimore, Md.: RPR&M.J.

Fenimore Russell. 1912. "The Work of Howard Sill, Architect." The Brickbuilder: An Architectural Monthly 21(9), September 1912.

Harry G. Schalck. 1970. "Mini-Revisionism in City Planning History: The Planners of Roland Park." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 29(4), December.

_____. 1978. "Life on a Gravelly Hill: An Architectural Historian's View of Roland Park, 1891-1914." Unpublished manuscript posted on University of Baltimore Langsdale Library Special Collections web site (http://archives.ubalt.edu/lhrc/pdf/Roland%20Park.pdf).

J. Thomas Scharf. 1874. Chronicles of Baltimore: Being a Complete History of "Baltimore Town" and Baltimore City from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Baltimore, Md.: Turnbull Brothers.

Sisters of Charity. [1926.] Kirkleigh Villa: A Guest Home for Women, Conducted by the Sisters of Charity. Baltimore, Md.: Sisters of Charity.

Lisa Simeone. 2009. "Beautiful Baltimore Houses: Architectural Duo Edward L. Palmer, Jr. and William D. Lamdin Created Some of the Most Noteworthy Houses in Baltimore." Baltimore Style, May/June.

George B. Simmons. 1912. A Book of Pictures in Roland Park, Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore, Md.: George B. Simmons.

Howard C. Spellman. 1954. "I Remember Roland Park's Early Firefighters." (Baltimore) Sun Magazine, July 11.

University of Baltimore. 2010. Roland Park Civic League (RPCL), a web-site summary of the Langsdale Library's holdings of RPCL historic records, 1903-1978. Internet site (http://archives.ubalt.edu/rpcl/table.htm).

James F. Waesche. 1987. Crowning the Gravelly Hill: A History of the Roland Park—Guilford—Homeland District. Baltimore, Md.: Maclay & Associates.

William N. White (ed.). 2001. The Centennial Legacy of the Roland Park Presbyterian Church, 1901-2001. Baltimore, Md.: Roland Park Presbyterian Church.

Otis E. Williams. 1907. "The Homebuilders' Suburb of New Baltimore: Roland Park." Indoors and Out journal (3, 4), March, April. Internet site (Google Books).

Wyndhurst Improvement Association. 2007. WIA News. Summer, June 15.

Atlases, Maps and Aerial Photographs (Chronological)

G.M. Hopkins. 1876. City Atlas of Baltimore, Maryland and Environs: From Official Records, Private Plans and Actual Surveys, Based upon Plans Deposited in the Department of Surveys. Philadelphia, Pa.: G.M. Hopkins. (Courtesy of Edward C. Papenfuse, State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents of Maryland,http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/html/index.html, downloaded December 2009.)

G.M. Hopkins. 1877. Atlas of Baltimore County, Maryland. Philadelphia, Pa.: G.M. Hopkins. (Editor's collection.)

George W. and Walter S. Bromley. 1898. Atlas of Baltimore County, Maryland: From Actual Surveys and Official Plans. Philadelphia, Pa.: G.W. Bromley & Co. (Courtesy ofEdward C. Papenfuse, State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents of Maryland,http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/html/index.html, downloaded July 2009.)

Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects. 1898. Roland Park Co.: Preliminary Plan for Subdivision, Brookline, Mass., February 28.

_____. 1900 and 1901. Two planting plans for the entrance to Ridgewood Road. Roland Park community associations' files.

_____. 1901a. General Plan for Portion of Roland Park Between Falls Road and Roland Avenue, Baltimore, Md., Brookline, Mass.

George W. and Walter S. Bromley. 1906. Atlas of the City of Baltimore, Maryland: From Actual Surveys and Official Plans. Philadelphia, Pa.: G.W. Bromley & Co. (Courtesy ofEdward C. Papenfuse, State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents of Maryland,http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/html/index.html, downloaded July 2009.)

Roland Park Company (RPC). 1911. Plat No. 5 of Roland Park, Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Maryland. Baltimore, Md.: RPC. (Courtesy of Edward C. Papenfuse, StateArchivist and Commissioner of Land Patents of Maryland,http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/html/index.html, downloaded July 2009.)

_____. [c. 1912]. Plat of Guilford, Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Maryland in the Roland Park District. Baltimore, Md.: RPC. (Courtesy of Edward C. Papenfuse, State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents of Maryland,http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/html/index.html, downloaded July 2009.)

George W. and Walter S. Bromley. 1914. Atlas of the City of Baltimore, Maryland: From Actual Surveys and Official Plans. Philadelphia, Pa.: G.W. Bromley & Co. (Courtesy of Edward C. Papenfuse, State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents of Maryland,http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/html/index.html, downloaded July 2009.)

_____. 1915. Atlas of the City of Baltimore, Maryland: From Actual Surveys and Official Plans. Philadelphia, Pa.: G.W. Bromley & Co. (Courtesy of Edward C. Papenfuse, StateArchivist and Commissioner of Land Patents of Maryland,http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/html/index.html, downloaded July 2009.)

Baltimore, City of. 1923. Preliminary Maps, Topographical Survey, Baltimore City: May 1, 1922. Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore City Goverment. (Courtesy of JScholarship,https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu.)

Edward Bennet Matthews. 1935. Map of Baltimore City Showing the Amount of Overburden Covering the Underlying Rocks. Baltimore, Md.: Bureau of Plans and Surveys[Maryland Geological Survey]. (Editor's collection.)

U.S. Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS). 1938. "1937-1938 Baltimore City & Baltimore County: Aerial Photography Flown in November and December of 1937 and in April and May of 1938." Washington, D.C.: ASCS. (Courtesy of JScholarship,https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu.)

Alexander Gross. [c. 1950]. The Premier Street Map of Baltimore. New York, N.Y.: Geographia Map Co. (Editor's collection.)

U.S. Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS). 1953. "1952-1953 Baltimore City & Baltimore County: Aerial Photography Flown in 1952 and 1953."Washington, D.C.: ASCS. (Courtesy of JScholarship,https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu.)

Shell Oil. [c. 1960]. Shell Map of Metropolitan Baltimore. Chicago, Ill.: H.M. Goushá. (Editor's collection.)

F. Heath Coggins & Co. [c. 1961]. Map of Roland Park, Guilford, Homeland, Northwood Area, Baltimore, Md.

Zoning Commission, City of Baltimore. 1962. Zoning District Plan for Rezoning of Baltimore City: Preliminary Recommendations of the Zoning Commission, September 1962. Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore City Zoning Commission. (Courtesy of JScholarship,https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu.)

Simonds & Simonds, Landscape Architects/Planners. 1964. Existing Parks and Recreation Facilities, the City of Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore City Departmentof Recreation and Parks and the Department of Planning. (Courtesy of JScholarship,https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu.)

Maps, Historic

A number of maps spanning over a century of greater Roland Park history are presented below. Click the thumbnails for larger PDF images. Throughout the pages that follow, annotated map details are in various places presented to illustrate a photo location. The maps below are the source maps for those excerpts. Despite the labels that I have for convenience given them below, the 1876 and 1877 Hopkins maps do not literally show the plats or neighborhoods mentioned. They predate most development in the area, so what they show is the locales that will become those plats or neighborhoods. "The District" mentioned in the caption under map 32 was the word commonly used at the time as a collective term for the Roland Park's Co.'s developments: Roland Park, Guilford, Homeland and Northwood (now known as Original Northwood).

Maps Set 1: Maps 1-7

Maps Set 2: Maps 8-14

Maps Set 3: Maps 15-21

Maps Set 4: Maps 22-28

Maps Set 5: Maps 29-35

Photos, Aerial

Below are reproduced two series of aerial photos taken by the U.S. Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) in 1938 and 1953. In these years, the ASCS took dozens of aerial photos of the entire greater Baltimore area, of which we here reproduce those showing the general Roland Park locale. There are seven for each of the two years, 1938 and 1953, and they are numbered, clockwise, from 1 to 7, from northeast around to northwest.

Aerials Set 6: Aerials 1-7

Aerials Set 7: Aerials 8-14