Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Pigtown is much more then just the running of the pigs at pigtown festival










Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, America’s first common carrier, was chartered on February 28th 1827 by a group of Baltimore businessmen to ensure traffic would not be lost to the proposed Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Construction on July 4th 1828 with the laying of the first stone in a grand ceremony attended by the honorable Charles Carroll, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence. The early horse drawn rail lines were made of wood rails with iron straps laid upon stones. The first stone, now located in the B&O museum in Baltimore, contained a copy of the original charter. President John Quincy Adams, believing that canals where the way of the future, broke ground the same day at a ceremony for the C&O Canal. By the end of the 19th century the B&O had achieved almost 5,800 miles of track and connected Chicago and St. Louis to Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York City. Depressions and hard times brought receivership of the B&O to the Pennsylvania Railroad on February 29th 1896. Improvements continued with a tunnel under the streets of Baltimore and new lines purchased. The US government took control of America's rail lines in 1917 during the First World War and left them severely weakened by 1920. The B&O however continued to grow and in 1927 acquired a 40 percent share in the Western Maryland Railway. The railroad celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1927 with two events, a private dinner in February and The Centenary Exhibition and Pageant of the Baltimore & Ohio in September. Some of the B&O's original locomotives and equipment were on hand as where replicas of the first steam engines, along side the latest in steam technology found on the B&O, Pennsylvania, and NYC. Total attendance for the three-week event was over 1.3 million people.

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