Join us to celebrate the Maryland Zoo’s 150th birthday with a new walking tour around its historic grounds led by Zoo staff. Discover the history of the zoo and several of its important landmarks, including iron-barred cages and other structures built when the Rogers Mansion was still a private residence. As we walk, we’ll hear about the zoo’s first elephant, Mary Ann, and we might even glimpse some penguins. We hope you’ll join us to experience a walk through the past, which will showcase how far zoological organizations have come from menageries of exotic creatures to expert conservation centers for endangered species!

Opened in 1839, Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery is the final resting place of some of Maryland’s most famous, and infamous, figures. For a long time, it was believed only one African American person, Martha Ann Atavis, was buried here. After filming a video on her, Baltimore Heritage board member and volunteer, Lashelle Bynum, vowed to uncover the stories of other African Americans buried here. Since then, Lashelle and Green Mount Cemetery employees have discovered over a dozen Black Baltimoreans who worked as enslaved and/or free servants and were buried in the plots of their enslavers and/or employers. Join Lashelle, and Molly Ricks, Deputy Director of Baltimore Heritage, to learn the names of these individuals—Patience Marsh, Isaac Beale, and Hester Turner, to name a few—and how they persevered.