Author: Molly Ricks

What Are We Planning for 2026? And why we need your support to make it happen.

With thanks to those who have already donated, we wanted to share what we’re planning for next year and ask again for help in making it happen by joining or renewing your membership! We are a small organization so a gift of any size – from $5 to $500 – will help immensely. Here are a few highlights for how your gift will help in the year ahead:

 

Heritage Tours

This past year we launched a new Inner Harbor by Boat tour and a new walking tour at Green Mount Cemetery focusing on John Willkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln. This spring we will be able to return with more robust tours and events, including more boat tours and a new series we’re calling Baltimore After Dark. Please stay tuned!

 

Five Minute Histories Videos 

We have produced 387 Five Minute Histories and counting! Don’t worry, these are here to stay, and we’re ramping up for a full year of them in 2026.

 

Hands On Preservation Work

This past year we launched a new “voluntours” series where we helped with community trash clean-ups and learned local history in the process. We held two voluntours at Laurel Cemetery and several trash clean-ups at Herring Run Park and Masonville Cove. We plan to continue this unique tour model in 2026.

 

 

We need your help today.

 

We at Baltimore Heritage are a little bit unusual. We rely heavily on kind volunteers to make our work possible, and nearly three quarters of our annual operating income comes from gifts from individuals. Most of these gifts are at our basic membership levels of $35 for an individual and $50 for a family. By donating at any level, be assured that your support goes a long way.

Please accept an enormous thank you to everyone who volunteers with us, comes out for tours and programs (in-person and virtually!), and supports our work by generously donating. Your help makes all of what we do possible.

— Johns Hopkins, Baltimore Heritage

Announcing our New WYPR Weekly Segment!

We are delighted to be partnering with WYPR 88.1 FM on a weekly radio segment called “Five Minutes of Baltimore History” hosted by our executive director, Johns Hopkins! Not all of Baltimore’s history is easy or straightforward, but all of it is important. Frederick Douglass escaped his enslavement from here; Holocaust survivor Gustav Brunn created Old Bay seasoning here; and William Walters gave the world Maryland rye whiskey (and gave us an art museum) from here. We hope you’ll join us each week to learn a little bit more about famous and not-so-famous people and events that continue to shape our city and our nation. To explore more of these stories, check out our Five Minute Histories videos.

The segment will begin airing on Tuesday, November 4, and can be heard on WYPR at 4:44 p.m. In addition to the radio broadcast, Five Minutes of Baltimore History will be available on demand at wypr.org and wherever you get your podcasts.

New Centennial Home: The O’Donnell, Wooden & Crew Family in Patterson Park

On October 16, 2025, Baltimore Heritage awarded a Centennial Homes certificate to Trudee O’Donnell. Trudee’s rowhouse on N. Kenwood Ave has been in her family for over 100 years. Her great-grandmother Gertrude Yowell and husband bought the home in 1922. And as you see from the picture, the potential next owner is in training! Thanks to Trudee and her family for their loving care of this home.

The Baltimore Centennial Homes project, developed in collaboration between Baltimore Heritage and City Councilman James Kraft, recognizes families that have been in the same house for 100 years or more. These families have anchored Baltimore’s historic blocks and neighborhoods through good times and bad. Their stories show the changes that our communities and our city have experienced as well as the critical roles that neighborhoods and their families have played in keeping historic neighborhoods thriving.  See all of our Centennial Homes here!

 

Thank You for Attending Our Preservation Celebration 2025!

Last Thursday night, October 9, Baltimore Heritage had its annual Preservation Celebration at One Charles Center! We handed out 13 awards to groups and individuals doing fabulous work celebrating and preserving our city’s history and buildings. We gave out 7 micro-grants to 7 very worthy community projects. We conducted our organization’s annual meeting, approved our revised by-laws and welcomed a few new board members. And we said a big thank you to our wonderful volunteers. They make historic preservation possible in Baltimore. We also gave out out some cool door prizes–gift certificates to the Made in Baltimore store, two tickets to the Everyman Theatre, and a two-night stay at the Lord Baltimore Hotel! All the while, we ate delicious food from Pitamore and the Peanut Shoppe of Baltimore and drank wine from Spirits of Mt. Vernon. Thank you to everyone attended.

 

Award Winners:

Volunteers of the Year: Rebecca Cohen & Derek Van De Walle

Dedication to sharing Baltimore’s rich history

 

Graham Projects, DDB Workshop, Neighborhood Impact Invest Fund,

Central Baltimore Partnership, Zeskinds Hardware, National Lumber & Stephanie Baker

The renovation of the Trenton Art Garage at 101 East Trenton Street

 

Friends of Patterson Park

Renovation of the White House and creation of the Cedar House

 

Janet Allen & Perkins Square Association

Restoration of the Perkins Square Gazebo

 

Upton Planning Committee, Neighborhood Design Center,

Quinn Evans Architects & Kelly Little

Restoration of the Parren Mitchell House on Lafayette Square

 

Southwest Partnership, Poppleton Now Community Association,

Twopoint Studio & Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks

Restoration of the Poppleton Recreation Center

 

Lewis Contractors & Society of St. Sulpice

Restoration of McGivney House of Formation

 

Baltimore Public Markets Corporation & Twopoint Studio

Restoration of Hollins Market

 

Baltimore City Historical Society, Deborah Weiner, Aiden Faust & Michael Franch

Making history relevant through the Baltimore History Evenings series

 

Jon Goldman, B&O Railroad Museum, Anna Kresmer, Evelyn Chatmon, Bria Chavis, Teisha Dupree-Wilson, Christopher Haley & Paula Phillips

The Underground Railroad: Freedom Seekers on the B&O Railroad

 

Joe Gans 150 & Corner Team Boxing

Living History Day at Mount Auburn Cemetery 2025

 

SM+P Architects, B&B Urban Baltimore, Civic Group, Atelier Giguere, J. Cole Builders, SRBR, Skarda and Associates, KCW Engineering Technologies & Jenkins Environmental

Restoration of the Crook Horner Lofts building

 

Douglas Gordon Award: Walter Schamu

A lifetime of commitment to advancing Baltimore’s architecture and history

 

Pitch Party Winners: 

Parity Homes – $2000

For historic signage in Elder Park

 

Arena Players Inc. – $1500

For an Arena Players documentary 

 

Present Company – $1000

For the renovation of Gertrude’s nightclub in Station North

 

Beloved Community Services Corporation – $500

For a mural at the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center (PS 103)

 

Market Center Community Development Corporation – $500

For murals in historic Chinatown

 

Baltimore Streetcar Museum – $500

For a new exhibit at the museum

 

Victorine Q. Adams Gardens, Inc. – $500

For upgrades to the Druid Hill Park Grove of Remembrance

 

Thank you for support from the Lord Baltimore Hotel and Everyman Theatre.