Baltimore Heritage

In 1867, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and North German Lloyd signed an agreement; the German steamship company would send at least one immigrant ship per month from Bremerhaven, Germany, while the B&O would build an immigration pier in Locust Point and run railroad tracks up to the pier so that passengers could seamlessly continue their westward travels.  The first immigrant ship, the “Baltimore,” arrived in March of 1868 and with it came the first wave of what would become by the start of WWI a total of 1.2 million immigrants arriving in Baltimore. The arrangement helped make Baltimore the third largest immigration port of entry during that time.

Today a group of Baltimoreans is working to establish a museum of immigration history at the “Immigrant House” on Beason Street in Locust Point. The building dates to 1904 when the German Evangelical Church of Christ established a mission for immigrants and sailors to spend the night, get meals, and search for jobs. World War I ended mass immigration to Baltimore, but the Immigrant House remained open to sailors until the outbreak of World War II. Please join us as we tour this museum in the making and learn fascinating stories of some of Baltimore’s immigrants and about how this wave of immigration fundamentally shaped our city.