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Country living with city convenience! Woodberry is geographically isolated by 765 acres in Druid Hill Park, the Jones Falls River, and 100 acres in Woodberry woods just south of Cold Spring Lane. Originally a mill town, many of Woodberry's mills, like Meadow Mill, have been converted to studios and offices. Woodberry is comprised of four neighborhoods: Brick Hill (this is a different Brick Hill than the listing on Live Baltimore’s website- this one is listed on the National Historical register), Greenspring Trails, Park Hill, and Woodberry/TV Hill, which is the historic mill section of Woodberry. These neighborhoods range from nine houses to a couple hundred. |
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If you want to live near your work, but you haven't found what you are looking for in other Baltimore neighborhoods, consider Woodberry! Woodberry's historic houses are situated between a 765 acre park and the Jones Falls River, and seems more like a small town in Pennsylvania
than in Baltimore City. Woodberry has easy access to the Light Rail, with two stops nearby. Woodberry is also close to open space and recreation. A disk golf course, tennis courts, jogging and bike paths, and the Baltimore Zoo are located in nearby Druid Hill Park. Rockrose Park has picnic areas and a brand new playground. A proposed greenway trail will give residents hiking and biking options in Woodberry Woods along the Jones Falls River. Bird watchers will enjoy viewing over forty species of birds, including herons, woodpeckers, and Baltimore orioles. Other area attractions include studios, galleries and other venues like Gomez Gallery, Axis Theatre, and the Potter's Guild! And if you are still bored, you can check out Hampden's Main Street on the other side of the Jones Falls River, or go downtown- it's only ten minutes away!
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Woodberry has a variety of houses, from rustic stone houses to wooded cottages. Brick Hill is listed on the National Historic Register and includes brick and stone duplexes built in the late 1800's. Park Hill's houses are mostly single family wood homes built in 1939. Greenspring Trail contains wooded cottages built in the 1940's. Woodberry/TV Hill has the largest variety of styles, including stone duplexes, wood duplexes, brick rowhouses complete with trim, and single family wood frame homes built around the 1870's and 1880's, and newer brick rowhouses built just after World War II. The mill houses in Woodberry have been nominated for the National Historic Register.
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Woodberry began as a small mill town, with its first flour mill created in 1802 to process grain grown in Frederick County for export. In 1804, the Falls turnpike followed an old Indian trail out of Baltimore city (Woodberry was part of Baltimore county until its annex in 1888) to the area, and this road spurred development in the area.
By 1820, the Baltimore area was a world center for flour milling. Cotton duck grew in popularity soon after and by the 1830's, most of the flour mills were converted to cotton mills. The Poole and Hunt Foundry (which created the cast iron columns for the Capitol's dome in Washington, D.C.) and the North Central Railroad came to Woodberry in the 1850's. By the time of the Civil War, there were four cotton mills in the Hampden-Woodberry area, mostly owned by the Gambrill family. These operations were small; by the 1860's, only about 500 employees worked in these mills.
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The 1870's were a time of great growth in Woodberry. Woodberry Mill (on the small area of Union Ave that runs next to the light rail tracks) was expanded, and Meadow mill was built by William Hooper and Sons. The mill workforce grew dramatically from 616 to 2,931 workers in this decade. People from Pennsylvania, northern Baltimore County, and Carroll County learned of the jobs in the area, and came into the area by train. Almost everyone in the area worked in these mills; sometimes entire families, including children, worked 12-hour days. The mill owners played a patriarchal role in the worker's life by building churches, houses, schools, libraries, and savings and loans for their workers. These were not just for the workers benefit; it helped keep workers at the mills. Woodberry even had its own paper, the Woodberry News, published by Frank Morling.
The area was annexed to Baltimore City amidst worker's protests in 1888. This gave the powerful mill owners the ability to become politically active. Two notable residents of Woodberry are Alcaeus Hooper and Clay Timanus. Hooper became mayor of Baltimore in 1895; Timanus was elected mayor a few years later. By 1900, the mills in Woodberry were one of the largest workplaces in the entire country. 1870-1923 was the heyday of Hampden-Woodberry (they were more closely associated during this time, with the Mill area their common ground) as a cotton mill area. Unfortunately, demand for cotton duck fell dramatically after World War I, and companies faced the prospect of strikes within their massive workforces. In April 1923, the Mount Vernon Mill (Located on Falls road across from the Mill center, currently used by Life-like) announced a new 54-hour workweek with a 7 and one half percent increase in pay. Workers wanted to keep their 48-hour week and wanted a wage increase, the company refused and the workers went on strike. Workers had struck before, but this time the company refused to cave into the workers demands. Eventually the workers returned to work after about eight weeks. This signaled the decline of the mills- by 1925, Mount Vernon mill sold three of its mills and moved to Tallahassee, Alabama, and Greenville, South Carolina, where costs were lower. The mills hung in there through the rest of the 20's and the great Depression, and came back for a time during World War II, but declined sharply after the war, with the advent of synthetic materials.
The physical isolation of Woodberry, along with the original resident's dependence on the mills helped give the area an identity unique to Baltimore. One does not even think that he or she is in Baltimore City in certain parts of Woodberry. |
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| This list may not include all schooling options for this neighborhood. For more information on Baltimore schools, visit the Live Baltimore School Links. |
- Poly High (magnet school)
- Western High (all girls magnet school)
- Baltimore City College (magnet baccalaureate school)
- Hampden Elementary School
- Robert Poole Middle
- Roland Park Elementary/Middle
- Northern High school
- Waldorf School (private)
- Friends School of Baltimore (private)
- Gilman School (private)
- Bryn Mawr School (private)
- Kennedy Krieger School
- Medfield Elementary
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