In July of 1814, Captain Henry Thompson reported that this month began with sultry mornings and showers in the afternoons. The weather hasn’t changed much even 200 years later but we’re rolling through the height of a sultry Baltimore summer with some new tours.

For the casual bicyclist, we have a new tour of historic mills in the Jones Falls Valley, where you can roll down hill then take the light rail home! For anyone curious about Baltimore’s elite in the Gilded Age, we have the chance to look inside the Jenkins Mansion in Mount Vernon, one of the city’s most gilded and best preserved residences. Please join us!

Interior photographs courtesy Julie Canard/MRIS.

After last week’s 2014 Awards Celebration, I want to again congratulate everyone who won an award and share my sincere thanks with everyone came out and helped make the evening a success. Take a look at our list of 2014 award recipients and you are sure to share our excitement about the future of preservation and revitalization in Baltimore. As we head into July, we have an exciting line up of new tours and returning favorites.

Don’t miss our tour of the “Immigrant House” – a new museum in the making in Locust Point! We are glad to share a fun event from the Archdiocese of Baltimore as it celebrates its 215th Anniversary with a day of open houses of Catholic heritage sites downtown. Finally, if you have family in town this month, we have plenty of cheap and free tours to show off our city’s historic landmarks including Looking Up Downtown and free Station North by Foot tours at Artscape!

Photograph from Book of the Royal Blue, 1904.

Green Mount Cemetery, sometimes known as Baltimore’s “Valhalla,” is turning 175 years old this July and we are celebrating with a walking tour with cemetery guru and eminent Baltimore historian Wayne Schaumburg! With notables that include Johns Hopkins and Enoch Pratt, William and Henry Walters, and Betsy Patterson, it is no wonder the cemetery has earned the moniker “where Baltimore’s best were laid to rest.”

You can also combine fresh produce and fresh history on our latest Looking Up Downtown tour leaving from the Baltimore Farmer’s Market this Sunday, June 1. And don’t forget to sign up soon for our 2014 Awards Celebration on June 19 at the new Baltimore Design School – tickets are going fast!

It finally feels as if spring is finally here, and not just on paper. Take off your jacket and come out for one of our exciting new tours or bike rides this spring! We’re especially excited to announce that our Looking Up Downtown tours return to the Baltimore Farmer’s Market this Saturday. This year, we’re also launching a new partnership with Carroll Museums, Inc. to add a tour of historic Jonestown and the inside of the Phoenix Shot Tower on the third Sunday of every month.

Join us at the Baltimore Museum of Industry as we explore the museum’s history, architecture and recent restoration inside and out! Restoration architect Carol Quigley of Frens and Frens Architects will share her knowledge on a tour of the outside and Roland H. Woodward, BMI’s director, will give us a true behind the scenes look at the making of the exhibits and the redesigned interior.

Finally, please save the date for our 2014 Preservation Awards Celebration on June 19, 2014 at the award-winning home of the Baltimore Design School. I hope you can join us!

Featured photograph by Marc Siegel, 2012. Courtesy the Baltimore Museum of Industry.