Mount Clare Shops
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, located in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which...
(B&O) in 1829. Mt. Clare was the site of many inventions and innovations in railroad technology. It is presently the site of the B&O Railroad Museum
B&O Railroad Museum
The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland, originally named the Baltimore & Ohio Transportation Museum when it opened on July 4, 1953. It has been called one of the most significant collections of railroad treasures in the world and has the...
. The museum and Mt. Clare station were designated a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1961.
History
The Mount Clare site was a portion of an estate owned by Charles Carroll (barrister)Charles Carroll (barrister)
Charles Carroll was an American lawyer and statesman from Annapolis, Maryland. He was the builder of the Baltimore Colonial home Mount Clare , and a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776 and 1777....
, a distant cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a wealthy Maryland planter and an early advocate of independence from Great Britain. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later as United States Senator for Maryland...
. (See Mount Clare (Maryland)
Mount Clare (Maryland)
Mount Clare is the oldest Colonial-era structure in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The Georgian style plantation house exhibits a somewhat altered five-part plan...
.) The initial operations of the B&O used horsecar
Horsecar
A horsecar or horse-drawn tram is an animal-powered streetcar or tram.These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel...
s, and the earliest facilities on the Mt. Clare site included a depot
Train station
A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...
and stables for horses. This was one of the earliest passenger stations in the United States.
Following the 1830 manufacture of the first U.S. steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
by Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States...
at the nearby Canton Iron Works, the B&O began building locomotives at Mt. Clare, as well as freight cars, passenger cars, bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
s and other railroad equipment. Ross Winans
Ross Winans
Ross Winans was an American inventor, mechanic, and builder of locomotives and railroad machinery. He is also noted for design of pioneering cigar-hulled ships. Winans, one of the United States' first multi-millionaires, was involved in politics and was a vehement states' rights advocate...
and Phineas Davis
Phineas Davis
Phineas Davis was a well-known clockmaker and inventor who designed and built the first practical American coal-burning railroad locomotive....
, pioneers in locomotive design, built their inventions at Mt. Clare. The shops employed 100 workers in 1839.
The B&O built an ironworks at Mt. Clare in 1850. The first iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
railroad bridges, designed by Wendel Bollman
Wendel Bollman
Wendel Bollman was an American self-taught civil engineer, best known for his iron railway bridges. Only one of his patented "Bollman truss" bridges survives, the Bollman Truss Railroad Bridge in Savage, Maryland...
, were built in the Mt. Clare shops in the 1850s. A roundhouse
Roundhouse
A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...
, engine service and car shops, and a new depot were also built at Mt. Clare during this period.
After the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the railroad built a foundry
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
, blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
shop, additional car shops and an office building at Mt. Clare. In 1882, the railroad added a bridge fabrication shop. A circular (actually 22-sided) passenger car shop, sometimes mislabeled as a roundhouse, was designed by noted architect E. Francis Baldwin and completed in 1884. At the time of completion it was the largest circular industrial building in the world, 235 ft (71.6 m) in diameter and 123 ft (37.5 m) high.
Mt. Clare shops employed 1,000 workers by 1852 and over 3,000 in the 1920s.
Between 1900 and 1920, the B&O erected a large locomotive shop, sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
, machine shop, a grain elevator
Grain elevator
A grain elevator is a tower containing a bucket elevator, which scoops up, elevates, and then uses gravity to deposit grain in a silo or other storage facility...
and a tender shop. Air-conditioned
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...
passenger cars were developed by the B&O and the Carrier Corporation
Carrier Corporation
The Carrier Corporation is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems, and a global leader in the commercial refrigeration and food service equipment industry...
at Mt. Clare in the late 1920s.
The railroad built its last steam locomotive at Mt. Clare in 1948. During the 1950s, as the railroad increased its use of diesel locomotive
Diesel locomotive
A diesel locomotive is a type of railroad locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine, a reciprocating engine operating on the Diesel cycle as invented by Dr. Rudolf Diesel...
s, there was less demand for steam locomotive and machine shop work at Mt. Clare. The railroad abandoned use of the circular car shop in 1953 and made it available for use by the museum.
In 1962, a fire destroyed the Mt. Clare locomotive erecting shop. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P...
(C&O) purchased the B&O, also in 1962, and subsequently locomotive repairs were handled at the B&O shops in Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland is a city in the far western, Appalachian portion of Maryland, United States. It is the county seat of Allegany County, and the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 20,859, and the metropolitan area had a...
. Only car repairs were continued at Mt. Clare, until 1974, when all shop work on the site was discontinued. By this time many of the buildings were in disrepair, and most were demolished by 1976, except for those used by the museum. CSX Transportation
CSX Transportation
CSX Transportation operates a Class I railroad in the United States known as the CSX Railroad. It is the main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and owns approximately 21,000 route miles...
, the successor railroad company, sold portions of the property, and 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) of the Mt. Clare site have been retained by the museum.