Early Westport

As early as 1675, settlers were setting up small farms in what is now Westport.  In 1732, wealthy landowner Charles Carroll purchased the plots and the following year, sold several tracts along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River to fellow British settler John Moale.  The Middle Branch, rather than the Northwest Branch, might have served as the original settlement of Baltimore had Moale not believed that iron mining was more lucrative than real estate speculation.  Moale founded the Baltimore Company and constructed an iron furnace at the mouth of the Gwynns Falls, which empties into the Middle Branch.  The foundry continued in operation until the Civil War with scows transporting the iron ore out through the Middle Branch harbor.

1891 William Flamm Map of Baltimore

In 1836, Harmon’s Three Cent Bridge, a 200 foot wooden span, was completed, providing access across the Gwynn’s Falls from Baltimore City to the south bank of the Middle Branch.  The two major roads through Westport at the time were the Maryland Road ( Annapolis Road) and Fish House Road, (now known as Waterview Avenue).  Nearby pedestrians and those with buggies could find their way to the country village over the new bridge.  Westport could also be reached by B&O railroad, which operated a station at the foot of Manokin Street.  Nevertheless, Westport, originally part of Baltimore County, remained relatively inaccessible until the introduction of streetcars in the early 20th century.

After the Civil War

The closing of the Iron Works in Westport after the Civil War opened new land for subdivision.  In 1871, the Reverend James Patrick of Sharp Street Church in South Baltimore purchased a 30-acre parcel and established the first, and what would long be the only, cemetery for Baltimore’s African-Americans. The cemetery, which Reverend Patrick dubbed the “City of the Dead for Colored People,” bordered the southern edge of Westport along Graveyard Lane, (now Waterview Avenue).  Toward the end of the 19th century, leaders of the Sharp Street Church officially renamed their cemetery "Mount Auburn."

From 1898 Bromley Atlas of Baltimore County

In the late 19th century, the area now called Westport was mostly farmland and pasture.  The unnamed village was made up of one farmhouse and eleven small rowhouses clustered around the Carr & Lowrey Glass Works factory, which opened in 1889.  The name "Westport" first appears in connection with the area in the 1898 Bromley Atlas of Baltimore County.  And "Westport" is listed as a distinct settlement in U.S. Manuscript Census for 1900.  The small village founded a volunteer fire department in 1893.   Westport’s first church, the Swindell Memorial Methodist Church, was constructed in 1894.

In the 1900 census, Westport included 150 households, only 6 of which were African-American families.  Most of the population was Maryland-born and of German descent.  Most people were renters, and almost all of the men were under the age of 40 and employed by the Carr & Lowrey Glass Works factory.

In the early 20th century, the south and west shores of the Middle Branch became the scene of summer recreation for city dwellers.  Residents and visitors to Westport enjoyed sandy beaches and excellent swimming, boating and fishing.  The Middle Branch abounded with shad, herring, rock fish, and yellow perch, and soft shell crabs, prevalent at flood tide.

As its popularity grew, the area around the Middle Branch became known as the “Monte Carlo of Maryland.”  Gypsies camped along Fish House Road, offering gambling and other pursuits.  As late as 1914, groups of one-story frame shanties remained along the waterfront, (south of the site of the Carr Lowrey Glass Factory).

World War I Era

In the years just before and after World War I, the calm village, previously considered by many city dwellers to be a “wilderness,” began to change.  Debris from the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 provided fill along the harbor and additional acreage for industrial development.  The Three Cent Bridge across the mouth of Gwynn’s Falls, which had served the area for close to 100 years, was taken down in 1914, and the Hanover Street Bridge was completed in 1916, to connect the north and south banks of the Middle Branch.  Then in 1918, Baltimore City annexed Westport, ushering in a decade of rapid change.

While annexation provided Westport with running water, sewer lines, a police department, and more, Baltimore City property taxes sharply raised farmers’ tax burdens, increasing the pressure to develop their farmland.  Between 1910 and 1920, the population of Westport’s ward grew by 103%.  Baltimore City’s 1920 school survey characterized the dwellings as “good rental type homes” with some “poorer flats.”  By 1923, Westport had its own fire station, replacing the volunteer fire company, (still located at 2425 Annapolis Road).

And in 1925, Public School 225 was built at the corner of Maisel and Nevada Streets, one of the highest points in the village.  (The only school in the neighborhood prior to that was the four room Westport School at Russell and Tacoma Streets, which had been destroyed by fire in 1911.)  In 1927, Enoch Pratt Free library constructed a new branch by the Westport fire department.  By 1930, two-story rowhouses lined the area bounded by Manokin, Cedley, Indiana, and Tacoma Streets.

Business & Industry

Although Westport remained rural into the late 19th century, the process of rapid industrialization began around the turn of the century.  Even before World War I, industry lined the waterfront.  The Carr-Lowrey Glass Company, which opened in 1889, more than doubled in size by World War I.  The Novelty Steam Boiler Works opened on the waterfront by the late 19th century.  In 1905, the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company began construction of their massive Westport Power Station.  Said to be the largest reinforced concrete generating power station, by 1908, the station was producing all of the power company’s electricity. Industry replaced much of the Middle Branch recreational areas. When the first  Baltimore City Zoning Ordinance was passed in 1923, virtually all of the Middle Branch waterfront was zoned as industrial use.  The Middle Branch was virtually forgotten as a recreational, environmental and ecological resource.

A group stands congregated around the Westport Bank, 2219 Annapolis Road, owned by the Union Trust Company in February, 1940.

Residential development was more haphazard.  Semi-detached brick rowhouses first appeared in the early 20th century along Maryland Avenue, (which is now Annapolis Road), with wrap-around porches and side yards, followed by commercial buildings, including several saloons and fish shanties, giving Westport a raffish character.  By 1915, F. O. Singer, Jr., the son of a plumbing contractor who had acquired much of the land between Indiana Street and Kent Street east of Annapolis Road, and was busy building rowhouses.