Parker Metal Decoration Company Plant - Baltimore MD - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

The Parker Metal Decorating Company, which occupied the Parker Metal Decorating Company Plant from 1921 to 1994, pioneered technical innovations that contributed to Baltimore's metal decorating industry. Metal decorating was an essential component of the city's major canning industry, and the plant's association with metal decorating makes it locally significant under National Register Criterion A.

The Parker Metal Decorating Company Plant is the only standing building associated with the city's smaller early-l9th century metal lithography firms. The building's period of significance extends from 1921 to 1949, while the company's survival into the late 20th century exemplifies the flexibility and adaptive market strategies that Baltimore's location and broad industrial base made possible.

The Parker Metal Decorating Company occupied its plant south of Camden Yards in Baltimore City beginning in 1921. Founder Edwin Augustus Parker (ca. 1875-1929) established the firm to print designs directly on metal sheets, a technique that would persist even as the firm sold to different markets over the years. Among the firm's products were printed food can bodies for outside can companies as well as its own in-house Independent Can Company; metal household products such as waste baskets and pantry sets: and metal display racks and advertising signs. Maintaining these three distinct categories distinguished the firm among Maryland tinprinters. To accommodate changing industrial processes the Parker Metal Decorating Company added new sections to its building, beginning in 1925 and continuing into the 1970s.

In 1973 Parker Metal became the nation's first metal printer to switch to an all-ultraviolet curing plant, allowing for quicker curing and eliminating solvent-laden coatings. Other leaders in the industry toured the plant, in part as an effort to create demand that would spur ink producers to make UV-appropriate inks at a large scale. By the 1980s the firm's products included tins for Twinings Tea and Old Bay Seasoning. Undercut by the entry of U.S. Can into the specialty printing business on a large scale, however, Parker Metal closed in January of 1994.

Street address: 333 W. Ostend Street Baltimore, MD United States 21230 County / Borough / Parish: Baltimore (Independent City) Year listed: 2000 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event Periods of significance: 1925-1949, 1900-1924 Historic function: Industry/Processing/Extraction Current function: Vacant/Not In Use Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   09/13/2021 Don.Morfe visited it