Baltimore Heritage

Baltimore's Seton Hill neighborhood, once known as the city's French Quarter, has a rich nineteenth-century history. On this walking tour through the beautiful old streets of Seton Hill, we will explore the surviving traces and look for the ghosts of the Victorian city. Come join historian Emma Katherine Bilski to step off the beaten path and hear stories of this neighborhood, including Baltimore's Black Catholic history, student "pranks and misdemeanors," the real history of Baltimore's asylums, and the human history of America's oldest Gothic Revival masterpiece.
Accessibility: We will be walking over some uneven grassy terrain and paving stones in addition to city sidewalks, and the tour will cover approximately 1.5 miles.

In February 1904, Baltimore’s chief firefighter cabled Washington DC: “Desperate fire here. Must have help at once!” A tremendous fire was sweeping through downtown and showed little signs of stopping. Not until 5:00 p.m. the next day was the fire brought under control. Overall, it destroyed 1500 buildings, left 35,000 people unemployed, and damaged $150 million of property. Resilient Baltimore rebounded quickly, erecting new buildings, widening streets, and improving fire safety designs. Rising out of the ashes, Baltimore used the fire to rethink the city, and the downtown we know today is shaped largely by this incident. Join us on this walking tour as we see what 2500 degrees Fahrenheit heat can do to blocks of solid stone, learn how the fire shaped architecture locally and across the country, and hear the tale of one of the fire’s great heroes: Goliath the horse.