Retro Baltimore

Severe Maryland earthquakes are fairly rare, which has ensured they make headlines whenever one rumbles across the region.

Sixty-five years ago Billy Blair, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Ruxton, won the Sunpapers Soap Box Derby, a heralded event that mirrored America’s passion for kids’ racing back then.

The pandemic has shown us how volatile the life span of a restaurant is. As much as we may savor a certain dish and anticipate a favorite dessert, there is no guarantee it will be around for another year.

Snowballs are popular summer treats in Baltimore and New Orleans. But which city has the oldest snowball stand?

Alley houses have been a cornerstone of Baltimore architecture since the 1780s as a way to provide affordable housing to Black residents and recently immigrated families. Now, estimates are that only a few hundred remain.

One hundred years ago, Baltimore had a baseball swagger, and deservedly so.

Kara Mae Harris has plotted thousands of historical Maryland recipes on her website Old Line Plate.

Decades before the Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery, white legislators decided to create a homeland back in Africa for free Black people. That land would become Liberia — with Maryland County, formerly the independent Republic of Maryland — at its southernmost point.

The 1896 Orioles played an exhibition game at St. Charles College in Ellicott City.

For four years in Baltimore, the dapper first baseman known as “Diamond Jim” wowed crowds with his hurricane swings, monstrous wallops and stormy outbursts.

As the start of summer marks the traditional beginning of crabbing season, the prices for Maryland’s prized crustaceans this year are skyrocketing. In the early 1900s similar price hikes and supply issues nearly ended the vocation of many Black entrepreneurs, who were credited with crafting crabs into the cakes we enjoy today.

While modern Baltimore is known for its drag brunches and lively modern ballroom culture, the blossoming of Baltimore’s drag culture dates back to prohibition— an era when drag balls took center stage.