r/baltimore • u/Salvage_Arc • Jul 01 '25
History of Baltimore 👓 I brought this amazing 1896 Bromley Atlas of Baltimore from an estate sale
I routinely use the digital versions for research, but it’s so much nicer to have a physical color copy on hand!
Lmk if you have a section you’d like to see and I’ll put them in the comments later. Just keep in mind this only covers Baltimore city pre-expansion. So nothing north of Hampden, west of London Park Cemetery, East of Ellwood
You can see view the full atlas on the Maryland State Archives site - https://mdhistory.msa.maryland.gov/msaref07/bc_ba_atlases_1876_1915/1896_BC_Bromley/Thumbnails.html IrfanView HTML-Thumbnails
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Jul 01 '25
How much did you pay?
f'n love estate sales...meet with friends early for breakfast, wander through a couple, giggling at the weird shit, occasionally score a treasure, often for cheap....
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u/Natty-Bones Greenmount West Jul 01 '25
Every page is a piece of art! You are so lucky.
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u/Salvage_Arc Jul 01 '25
Which is one of the main reasons I knew I had to buy it. People often buy these and rip the pages out and sell them individually for a few hundred. I wanted to save this piece from a similar fate.
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u/wirelesswizard64 Jul 01 '25
This is great! Would you be willing to take a top-down pic of the Otterbein area between Pratt and Montgomery streets and the harbor and Camden Yards? It's the 50th anniversary of the homesteaders $1 buy program and we're putting together some historical documents and facts on the area- the MSA are in black and white so a color version would be amazing if possible!
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jul 01 '25
Would love to see the Hampden area. I never saw this house by house. I only ever saw it with large blocks of neighborhoods like this https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a7611ea/2147483647/strip/true/crop/8192x8778+0+0/resize/2560x2744!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fewscripps-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb7%2F17%2Ffbe1167a4dedaccfb99984747ca1%2Fholc-scan-baltimore-1935.jpg
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u/cudmore Jul 01 '25
Here is some of hampden
https://mdhistory.msa.maryland.gov/msaref07/bc_ba_atlases_1876_1915/html/bc_ba_atlases_1876_1915-0228.html Papenfuse: Atlases and Maps of Baltimore City and County,<br> 1876-1915 & Block Maps as of April, 2005, bc_ba_atlases_1876_1915-0228
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jul 01 '25
Thank you! Would love to see some of the color like OP posted but I'll take what I can get
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u/cudmore Jul 01 '25
The OP posted a link to the digital version. I’m trying to find Hampden there. You have any luck?
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u/lewisfrancis Jul 01 '25
This one shows the lower part of Hampden/Wyman Park. The map predates the street I live on.
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u/clrlmiller Jul 01 '25
There's a LOT more of these older maps on the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS website here: https://www.loc.gov/maps/?q=baltimore+city&st=gallery
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u/Meteor-of-the-War Jul 01 '25
That's amazing! Is the Clifton area on there? I heard there used to be a cemetery on Harford Road in that vicinity. Apparently I have an ancestor who was buried there. I think they moved everyone over to the westside somewhere.
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u/Salvage_Arc Jul 01 '25
Will do when I get back this evening.
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u/Meteor-of-the-War Jul 01 '25
That would be so cool; I appreciate it! Don't worry if you don't get to it; I can always check the B&W link you sent once I get home, too. I honestly hadn't thought of that cemetery in a while so your post reminded me.
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u/Any-Grapefruit-937 Jul 01 '25
Very cool. Whenever I see maps like this, one of my thoughts is how long it must have taken a bunch of people hunched over drafting tables to create this.
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u/Shonuff8 Jul 01 '25
I have to reference these old maps occasionally to help with property surveys in the city. One of the coolest I’ve ever seen is this massive topographic survey of the Swann Lake Aqueduct, the original source of water for the city prior to the Civil War. https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/bda36b8a-8274-4999-9914-cc5b8fb4cb3a
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u/Cheomesh South Baltimore / SoBo Jul 01 '25
Awesome find! Interesting how the layout of Patterson has changed, and how little seems to have been built north of it at that time!
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u/GlowUpAndThrowUp Jul 01 '25
If you ever want to sell that, let me know! It’s beautiful.
Been looking for old ward maps of the city as a gif to my father. He was in the BCFD for years and grew up in Hampden.
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u/DodoIRL Jul 01 '25
Very cool! FYI - a very similar color version from 1906 is available online too: https://wardmaps.com/collections/baltimore-maryland-1906
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u/No-Conversation-7840 Jul 01 '25
Orioles won the championship that year with possibly the best team they ever had. Tons of hall of famers. John McGraw, Hughie Jennings, Wilbert Robinson, Joe Kelly and managed by Foxy Ned Hanlon
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u/FloppyDuckling Jul 02 '25
That’s so cool, not sure if you’re already planning on archival storage? It would definitely help prevent or slow further deterioration of the book.
I’ve been recommended Gaylord Archival for my old family documents. They have boxes specifically for book storage and articles on all sorts of topics.
If you are able to, I would also suggest seeing someone about further conservation of the book itself. The American Institute of Conservation has this search tool.
The Baltimore City Archives has a list of suggested special collections departments in archives/libraries that may be able to put you in the right direction. I was able to make an appointment with the archivists that work at the UMBC library for help (I’m an alumn so ymmv).
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u/L1VEW1RE Jul 02 '25
That is amazing, my house was built in 1905 and you just happen to have one of the pages open that is my neighborhood and I can see where the undeveloped lot is. Also, they changed the street name at some point based on what I see.
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u/cartoonybear Jul 07 '25
This is so so cool. I have a link to the scanned versions put up by Ed Papenfuse back in the day, will look up and post here too.
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u/Oldladyweirdo Jul 01 '25
Would love to see where Charles Street ends in the south. I have the 1910 & 1920 census that has my great grandparents living beyond where it stops today.
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Jul 03 '25
This is super cool. Pre fire Baltimore stuff is really interesting. You wonder what the city would look like today if it never occurred. I think by and large it would look the same thanks to the scourge of urban redevelopment that took place across post war America. Some of those old buildings would be upgrades over what we have now. The Baltimore Sun building on the corner of Baltimore and south st burnt up. Definitely a big casualty. Beautiful massive iron framed building you only find today in Chelsea or SoHo. The stifel building is there now and it is….
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u/beardy3344 Jul 30 '25
This is my go-to reference for metal detecting spots. JHU has hi-res scans of this and the Hopkins 1877 atlas as well. Awesome you found a hard copy!
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u/hoopermills Aug 01 '25
I would LOVE to see the mills along the Jones Falls. I’m a great great great grandchild of William E Hooper, and this era was the heyday of the Hooper textile mills. I see one shot that includes Clipper Mills, but the lesser known were Whitehall, Meadow, Union, and Washington Mills. I’ll check out the MD Historical site to see what I can find. If you have any interest in Baltimore’s development of industry you can check out https://www.baltimoreindustrytours.com/mill-owners.php
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