Former Public School #34-Pigtown Historic District - Baltimore MD - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

The Pigtown Historic District is significant for its association with the industrial development of Baltimore in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The development of the district is intimately linked with hallmark events of the Industrial Revolution in Baltimore, particularly the growth and development of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the nation's first railroad.

Location of the B&O Railroad on West Pratt Street in 1830 and the rapid growth of related industries around it, like locomotive works and car-building shops, directly resulted in the growth of a nearby working-class community. After 1870 the area became the home of the city's major gas works a technological innovation that provided a new form of street lighting and then indoor lighting.

The area also gains significance from the fact that it was one of Baltimore's major German settlements, particularly after the 1868 partnership between the B&O Railroad and the North-German Lloyd Steamship Company.

The Pigs in Pigtown

Pigtown earned its name because, during the second half of the nineteenth century, pigs offloaded from B&O Railroad cars coming in from the Middle West were herded across Ostend and Cross Streets to slaughterhouses in South Baltimore. Since the area was a German neighborhood and most of the city's butchers were German, many pigs were also butchered locally, for sale in area shops.


In the early days of B&O service, pigs, cattle, and sheep were unloaded into pens that were part of the Mount Clare yards. After the Civil War, however, the trade in live animals was such a regular part of the Baltimore business scene that individual stockyards began to be established in various locations near, and north of, Pratt Street.

In a history of the city published in 1873, George W. Howard's The Monumental City, the author brags that "the Cattle Market of Baltimore has long been famous." He notes that cattle, hogs, and sheep come to the city by rail and water, from Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas. Good facilities offered to drovers by the competing railroad lines in the city made Baltimore a popular market destination. According to Howard, 363,138 hogs arrived in Baltimore in 1872 alone.

Old-time residents of Pigtown recall the pigs being herded through the streets "to the slaughterhouses in South Baltimore." One such slaughterhouse was Heinz's Riverside Abattoir, established in 1885 in the 1900 block of Light Street. The operation covered half a block.

Former Public School #34-1300 Washington Blvd-Photo 25
(Northwest corner of S. Carey Street and Washington Boulevard)

BLOCK 767 Extending west from Washington Boulevard, this block between Carey and Bayard runs west to James Street. All of the block faces are filled with long rows of housing. The eastern half of the block was developed between 1893 and 1900; the western section between 1894 and 1906. The former Public School #34, built in 1895, occupies the northwest corner of S. Carey Street and Washington Boulevard. The two-story, four-bay-wide and thirteen-bay-deep building is now the Barrister Court Apartments. The school is built in a Classical Revival style, of red brick with white trim made of sheet metal. The slightly projecting, four-bay-wide entrance pavilion faces Washington Boulevard, capped by a triangular pediment framed on all sides by a deep sheet metal cornice decorated with different bands of neoclassical motifs. This same cornice extends around the sides of the building and frames the two similar triangular pediments marking the S. Carey Street fa9ade. The wide entrance door has a flat classical pediment and a stained glass transom. Tall, wide stone steps lead to the entrance. The building sits on a high basement, lit by large square windows along the Carey Street façade.

Name of Historic District (as listed on the NRHP): Pigtown Historic District Link to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com page with the Historic District: [Web Link] Address: 1300 Washington Blvd., Baltimore MD 21230 How did you determine the building to be a contributing structure?: Narrative found on the internet (Link provided below) Optional link to narrative or database: [Web Link] NRHP Historic District Waymark (Optional): Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   09/02/2021 Don.Morfe visited it