Former Scott Street Baptist Church-Pigtown Historic District - Baltimore MD - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

The Pigtown Historic District is significant for its association with the industrial development of Baltimore in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The development of the district is intimately linked with hallmark events of the Industrial Revolution in Baltimore, particularly the growth and development of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the nation's first railroad.

Location of the B&O Railroad on West Pratt Street in 1830 and the rapid growth of related industries around it, like locomotive works and car-building shops, directly resulted in the growth of a nearby working-class community. After 1870 the area became the home of the city's major gas works a technological innovation that provided a new form of street lighting and then indoor lighting.

The area also gains significance from the fact that it was one of Baltimore's major German settlements, particularly after the 1868 partnership between the B&O Railroad and the North-German Lloyd Steamship Company.

The Pigs in Pigtown

Pigtown earned its name because, during the second half of the nineteenth century, pigs offloaded from B&O Railroad cars coming in from the Middle West were herded across Ostend and Cross Streets to slaughterhouses in South Baltimore. Since the area was a German neighborhood and most of the city's butchers were German, many pigs were also butchered locally, for sale in area shops.


In the early days of B&O service, pigs, cattle, and sheep were unloaded into pens that were part of the Mount Clare yards. After the Civil War, however, the trade in live animals was such a regular part of the Baltimore business scene that individual stockyards began to be established in various locations near, and north of, Pratt Street.

In a history of the city published in 1873, George W. Howard's The Monumental City, the author brags that "the Cattle Market of Baltimore has long been famous." He notes that cattle, hogs, and sheep come to the city by rail and water, from Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas. Good facilities offered to drovers by the competing railroad lines in the city made Baltimore a popular market destination. According to Howard, 363,138 hogs arrived in Baltimore in 1872 alone.

Old-time residents of Pigtown recall the pigs being herded through the streets "to the slaughterhouses in South Baltimore." One such slaughterhouse was Heinz's Riverside Abattoir, established in 1885 in the 1900 block of Light Street. The operation covered half a block.

Former Scott Street Baptist Church, 1099 Scott Street-Photo 14
Now Pleasant Rock Baptist Church

Page 11-Similar in style to the original St. Jerome's, the former Scott Street Baptist Church (now Pleasant Rock Baptist) is located on the southeast corner of Cross and Scott Streets. A frame church was first built on the site in 1888, replaced in the early 1900s by a brick church with stone trim—a temple-front design with a three-bay wide façade and a seven-bay-deep nave. The most striking element of the façade is the huge stained glass window ornamenting the façade, set beneath a very low-pitched pointed arch. This same flattened arch frames the doors on either side of the façade and the three smaller stained glass windows set beneath the large central window. Each corner of the façade, and each bay of the nave, is marked by a tall, thin brick buttress with stone shoulders. On the façade, each of these buttresses is topped by a small, conical roof cap.

Name of Historic District (as listed on the NRHP): Pigtown Historic District Link to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com page with the Historic District: [Web Link] Address: 1099 Scott Street, Baltimore MD 21230 How did you determine the building to be a contributing structure?: Narrative found on the internet (Link provided below) Optional link to narrative or database: [Web Link] NRHP Historic District Waymark (Optional): Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   09/02/2021 Don.Morfe visited it