37
ell’s Point, which
rose on its deep-water allure,
declined as a destination for oceanic trade after Garrett’s
1867 agreement with the North German Lloyd Steamship line to
begin regular steamship runs between Baltimore and Bremen.
Since Fell’s Point’s wharves were too small to accommodate
steamers, Garrett decided to develop a marine terminal at Locust
Point across the river, constructing special facilities to handle
grain and coal. The idea worked so well that the Pennsylvania
Railroad soon duplicated it in Canton. Within a few years, Fell’s
Point’s trade was confined to flour and coffee.
Coal was long one of the Port’s bulk mainstays; much of it came
fromfields inWesternMaryland, where production peaked at seven
million tons in 1907. The long arm of the Port routinely has helped
shape the economic development of regions throughout the state,
but seldom as forcefully as in the Cumberland and Hagerstown
areas, where railroads and coal mining sustained generations.
The invention of the sewing machine, coupled with Baltimore’s
superior regional transportation network, improved the city’s grip
on the garment market and kept the Port busy moving textiles. The
advertising needs of Baltimore’s clothing manufacturers employed
hundreds. More than 100 packinghouses around the harbor in
1870 were needed to handle the prodigious output of Baltimore’s
canners, an export which in turn drove the manufacture of tin sheet
and packing cases. When the B&O’s tracks reached Chicago in 1875,
a vast new market was laid open. Grain, coal and beef poured into
the Port for export; Baltimore’s customs revenues increased tenfold.
The J.S. Young Licorice Extract Company, America’s first licorice
candy maker, opened on Boston Street in 1869. Licorice root, im-
ported from Middle Eastern nations, is in greatest demand by the
tobacco and pharmaceutical industries; two days of factory output
satisfied America’s annual consumption of licorice-flavored candy.
By 1877, the value of the Port’s foreign commerce was $62
million — a $17 million increase in five years. Imports overtook
exports in 1883, with 795,524 tons versus 662,542 tons. The value of
Baltimore’s domestic trade was higher than foreign trade, and
remained so until just before World War II.
Baltimore had, by the 1890s, emerged as a city of neighbor-
hoods. Stable residential patterns created a diverse and inter-
woven metropolis that worked hard and worked together,
a place where sons joined fathers on the same shop floor.
Immigrants found work at shipyards, factories, canneries and
packinghouses — enterprises which owed their existence
to some manner of the Port’s greater global presence.
Facing page: CNS handles
six million tons of coal a year,
processing from its state-
of-the-art yard. Above, left:
Millworkers were kept busy
providing textiles for export
after the invention of sewing
machines. Above, right:
C. Steinweg’s terminal at
North Locust Point handles
a variety of commodities,
including cocoa.
City of Neighborhoods
