Retro Baltimore

As the wrecking ball continues making its way through the lugubrious and now-closed Maryland Penitentiary that squats for several blocks on East Forrest Street in Baltimore, it’s time to recall the adventures of “Tunnel Joe” Holmes, the only resident of the institution who ever successfully dug his way to temporary freedom, and was returned there after pulling off a stickup in Mount Vernon.

More than a century ago, Baltimore was dealing with a different pandemic, the “Spanish Flu,” as it began to hit Baltimore area military bases this week in 1918 before ravaging the city.

On Sept. 13, 1964, as part of their first official North American tour, the Beatles played Baltimore.

"She was not the largest vessel to claim to be a tugboat, but she was specially built to serve the city as an all-around inspection troubleshooter for the port.”

An 1864 headline in The Baltimore American, proclaimed the event “the great election fraud.” The story played out in the early fall weeks that year as the Civil War was in a critical stage and the country faced a critical election.

Here's the history of the site where Vice President Mike Pence spoke and President Donald J. Trump made a surprise appearance during the Republican National Convention.

Lake Clifton had long been considered one of the city’s most troubled, but it started out with promise.

He didn’t look like a slugger. At 5 feet 11 and 175 pounds, Joe Hauser cut a modest figure as he strode to the plate. But his quick wrists and sweet swing made him a terror at bat in 1930, when he hit 63 home runs for the minor league Orioles.

7-year-old Anette Barber and three other family members died in a gas explosion in the winter of 1971 that leveled rowhouses on Roberts Place, a small street near Pulaski Highway and the Hebrew Friendship Cemetery.

The arrival earlier this week of Tropical Storm Isaias recalls the two meteorological occurrences that Marylanders fear most: hurricanes and snow.

It’s worth taking a look at the causes and consequences of that long-ago clash between citizens and Guardsmen in the streets of downtown Baltimore, a melee that set off a chain reaction of strikes along the railroad line.

Leonard “Max” Schroeder would have been 102 this month. The Linthicum native passed away at age 90 — remarkable, given the dicey role he played in World War II. Because on D-Day, 1944, Capt. Schroeder became the first American soldier to hit the sand at Normandy.