At an April get-together, a neighbor mentioned historic artifacts hiding in plain sight on a curb near the northeastern edge of the neighborhood.
According to the City preservation agency CHAP, the east side of Mt. Royal Avenue isn’t considered part of Bolton Hill; I don’t know what other neighborhood it would belong to. According to the official Live Baltimore neighborhoods map, it’s in-bounds, Bolton Hill proper. I went to investigate.
Behind MICA’s bookstore at 1501 Mt. Royal Ave. runs what might be the shortest street called an avenue in the city: Malster Avenue, just one block of it. Along the sidewalk there is evidence of an earlier streetscape. Near the entrance to the parking area east of Malster, hiding under shrubs, one can see a rounded low structure which could have marked a corner of property:
North of that, heading toward McMechen Street, one finds a pair of these low structures, possibly marking the entrance to a path:
Then back up at the corner of McMechen and Malster, there still stands a squat column, not in pristine condition but still standing:
These old elements marked the entrance to the Mt. Royal Pumping Station, which once supplied water to much of Baltimore.
The remaining column marked one side of the driveway to the port cochere at the front of the building. A July 1899 article in the Baltimore Sun said the pumping station “would draw its water supply by gravity from Lakes Montebello and Clifton, which are supplied by the Gunpowder (River), and will force it into the western high-service reservoir in Druid Hill Park.” The building was designed by Baltimore architect Henry Brauns. The architectural style of the station is French renaissance, done in Beaver Dam marble, rock faced and backed by hard burnt arch brick.
Another Sun article in November 1899 described the festivities accompanying the opening of the pumping station: The building was ablaze with electricity and a platform, heavily draped with bunting and surrounded by palms, set off one end of the big room. An immense American flag formed a background to the stand, and Farson’s Orchestra discoursed music through the evening….
Samuel T. Addison, president of the water board (who resided at 1610 Linden Ave., now Save A Lot’s parking lot), presented the building to the Republican Mayor, William T. Malster. Among the attendees was Pierre Otis Keilholtz, an engineer who designed the mechanical aspects of the power plant buildings down at the Inner Harbor, and who lived on W. Lanvale Street.
Malster was mayor from 1897 to 1899, when mayoral terms were just two years, and Malster Avenue, previously known as Elm Street, was named for him. It’s unclear when.
1914 Sanborn map showing the location of the pumping station on Malster Avenue, available on the website of the Library of Congress.
The life of the pumping station was not trouble free. A July 25, 1930, Sun article reported that “in the midst of the greatest drought … in 30 years, the main pump of the Mount Royal pumping station broke down. . . creating an emergency.” At least five deaths were attributed to the heat.
Earlier, in September 1907, The Sun reported:
A human skull with a remarkably well-preserved set of teeth was found under the foundation of one of the walls of the Mount Royal Pumping Station yesterday by one of the workmen employed by Building Inspector Preston in digging about the foundations to make way for the concrete that is to strengthen them.
The article concluded, If one sees a white-haired man with glasses walking along the street with his fingers crossed, there need be no mistake about the man or his thought. It is Mr. Preston, and he is trying to get rid of the ‘hoodoo’ of that skull.
The Mt. Royal Pumping Station was razed between 1954 and 1957, to make way for the Jones Falls Expressway, as can be seen in this Google Maps satellite view.
So next time you’re zipping along I-83 or caught in the “frenetic standstill” of a traffic jam nearby, remember the architect Henry Brauns and his marble-clad pumping station; water board President Addison of Linden Avenue, who presented the station to Mayor Malster; and recall Pierre Keilholtz of W. Lanvale St., who attended, as well.
And don’t forget that skull.
–Kevin Cross
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