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(rshsdepot) President Street Station (Baltimore), MD

**I'd like to take a moment to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.**

Bernie Wagenblast

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Group wants old station to be put back on track
President St. stop urged for city rail expansion

By Stephen Kiehl
Baltimore Sun Staff
Originally published December 24, 2002

A group of amateur historians hopes the historic President Street Station,
where Union troops clashed with an angry mob of Baltimoreans in one of the
first skirmishes of the Civil War, will once again welcome trains if the
state expands downtown rail service.
At President and Fleet streets, the head house of the 152-year-old station
stands today in the shadow of the glimmering new Marriott hotel. From 1850
to 1922, trains carried passengers to the station from points north and
east.

A group of history buffs, the Friends of the President Street Station, hopes
that will happen once more. They recently wrote letters to Gov.-elect Robert
L. Ehrlich Jr. and Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari, urging them to
make the station a stop in the new Baltimore regional rail plan.

"We want it to be the way it was," said Robert E. Reyes, vice president of
the preservation group. "Historically, it's the right thing to do."

The state announced last month that its priority in building the rail
system - which would add 66 new miles of rail to the existing 55 miles in
the region - is an east-west line from Woodlawn to Fells Point and an
extension of the Metro subway in Northeast Baltimore.

The state hopes to win federal approval to build those lines next year and
to get trains running by 2012. Plans call for the east-west line to include
stops to serve the National Aquarium and the burgeoning Inner Harbor East
area. The preservationists have suggested the President Street Station be
used to serve Inner Harbor East.

The two-story brick building with white colonnades houses the Baltimore
Civil War Museum, which opened in 1997 after the Friends of the President
Street Station saved the building from destruction and won it a place on the
National Register of Historic Places.

"All your soldiers, all your ordnance, all your railroad traffic came
through the President Street Station," said Ralph B. Vincent, president of
the preservation group. "It was the main railroad station until Penn Station
opened."

On April 19, 1861, a week after the Civil War began with the Confederate
bombardment of Fort Sumter, S.C., Union troops from Massachusetts and
Pennsylvania arrived at the President Street Station. Their rail cars were
uncoupled from the locomotive so horses could pull them down Pratt Street to
Camden Station, where another train would be attached so the troops could go
on to Washington.

Southern sympathizers pelted the rail cars with stones, bricks and debris,
and blocked the tracks. Forced into the street, the Union soldiers, who were
fired upon and hit with bricks, returned fire. In all, eight rioters, one
bystander and three soldiers were killed, becoming the first fatalities of
the war.

On April 20, 1861, The Sun reported on the riots: "As one of the soldiers
fired, he was struck with a stone and knocked down, and as he attempted to
arise another stone struck him in the face, when he crawled into a store,
and prostrating himself on the floor, clasped his hands and begged piteously
for his life."

The same day of the Pratt Street riots, there was another battle at the
President Street Station between largely unarmed volunteer soldiers from
Philadelphia and a Baltimore mob. While the bulk of the soldiers were making
their way to Camden Station, ultimately under police guard, several train
cars remained at President Street Station.

According to newspaper reports at the time, the cars were attacked with
stones and iron bars. Several hundred volunteers fled the cars and were set
upon by the mob. Five of them were killed and 13 wounded before they
reboarded the train and retreated to Philadelphia.

The museum would not have to move to make way for a modern passenger rail
stop because the new line would be either light rail, which would run at
street level, or heavy rail, which would run underground or above street
level. There is room for the state to build a new station adjacent to the
old station, Vincent said.

Officials with the Maryland Transit Administration said it's too early to
determine where the stations will be, though they do expect the downtown
portions of the rail lines to be underground to avoid street traffic. The
officials said they will consider Vincent's request, along with the wishes
of people who live near the planned lines.

Baltimore's rail plan is generating intense interest from more than
historians. Last week, about 130 business leaders and environmentalists
gathered for a breakfast at a downtown hotel to hear details of the plan and
to learn how they could support it.

"The Baltimore region cannot continue to be competitive if we don't have a
first-rate rail system," said Theresa Pierno, executive director of the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She and others said the rail system will help the
region attract young people and businesses.

"They're looking for vibrant, exciting places to live," said Dan Pontious,
director of the Baltimore Regional Partnership. "And one of the things
they're looking for is rapid and reliable public transportation."

His group released a report at the breakfast that shows that 44 percent of
the region's job growth by 2025 and one-fifth of the new housing will be in
areas near the proposed rail lines.

"Transit enables you to create a different kind of place, where you can
focus more on people walking around rather than providing parking," Pontious
said. "When people have other choices [besides cars], it opens up
possibilities for more residential and commercial activity."


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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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