Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station
About this property
The National Museum of Railroad History & Innovation (formerly the B&O Railroad Museum) is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Baltimore & Ohio Transportation Museum. It has been called one of the most significant collections of railroad treasures in the world and has the largest collection of 19th-century locomotives in the U.S. The museum is located in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's old Mount Clare Station and adjacent roundhouse, and retains 40 acres of the B&O's sprawling Mount Clare Shops site, which is where, in 1829, the B&O began America's first railroad and is the oldest railroad manufacturing complex in the United States. Mount Clare is considered to be a birthplace of American railroading, as the site of the first regular railroad passenger service in the U.S., beginning on May 22, 1830. It was also to this site that the first telegraph message, "What hath God wrought?" was sent on May 24, 1844, from Washington, D.C., using Samuel Morse's electric telegraph. The museum houses collections of 19th- and 20th-century artifacts related to America's railroads. The collection includes 250 pieces of railroad rolling stock, 15,000 artifacts, 5,000 cubic feet (140 m3) of archival material, four significant 19th-century buildings, including the historic roundhouse, and a mile of track, considered the most historic mile of railroad track in the United States. Train rides are offered on the mile of track on Wednesday through Sunday from April through December and on weekends in January. In 2002, the museum had 160,000 visitors annually. The museum also features an outdoor G-scale layout, two indoor HO scale model, and a wooden model train for children to climb on. From Thanksgiving through the New Year, local model railroad groups set up large layouts on the roundhouse floor and in select locations on the grounds of the museum. A museum store offers toys, books, DVDs, and other railroad-related items. The museum and station were designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1961. In 2008, the museum won three awards in Nickelodeon's Parents' Picks Awards in the categories of Best Museum for Little Kids, Best Indoor Playspace for Little Kids, and Best Indoor Playspace for Big Kids. Television and film actor Michael Gross is the museum's "celebrity spokesman". The museum definitively documented 24 Freedom Seekers that used the B&O Railroad on their journeys on the Underground Railroad – 8 of which traveled through the museum's historic site of Mount Clare. In 2021, the museum's Mount Clare Station building was designated as a National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site.
Location
Categories
Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station listed on the National Register?
Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 14, 1966.
What type of historic resource is Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station?
Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
Is Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station a National Historic Landmark?
Yes. Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station has been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL), the highest level of federal recognition for historic properties in the United States.
What is the period of significance for Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station?
The period of significance for Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Baltimore and Ohio Transportation Museum and Mount Clare Station will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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