Dundalk

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Did you purchase a Dundalk T-Shirt? If you did, take a picture of yourself wearing it and send it to [email protected] so I can get it up on the website.Any other pictures Dundalk worthy of posting please send them...The area now known as Dundalk was first explored by John Smith in 1608, when while conducting an expedition up the Chesapeake Bay he landed on the area known as the Patapsco Neck. Up until this time the was occupied by the tribes of the Susquehanna Indians.In 1664 Thomas Todd of Virginia purchased 1,150 acres (4.7 km²) of land on the Patapsco Neck, this being the first deed in Baltimore County. The original house, “Todd’s Inheritance”, was burnt by the British during the War of 1812, Battle of North Point. After the war the house was rebuilt, and it still stands today as a historical landmark.In 1895 Henry McShane, an immigrant from Ireland, established the McShane Bell Foundry on the banks of the Patapsco River in the then far southeastern outskirts of Baltimore. The foundry, today gone, manufactured cast iron pipes and furnace fittings. When asked by the Baltimore and Sparrows Point Railroad for a name of a depot for the foundry, which was on their rail line, he wrote Dundalk, after the town of his birth Dundalk, Ireland. One of the original stucco houses in Old Dundalk. Enlarge One of the original stucco houses in Old Dundalk.In 1916 the Bethlehem Steel Company purchased 1,000 acres (4 km²) of farmland, near the McShane foundry, to develop housing for its shipyard workers. The Dundalk Company was formed to plan a town in the new style, similar to that of the Roland Park area of Baltimore, excluding businesses except at specific spots and leaving land for future development of schools, playing fields, and parks. By 1917 Dundalk proper was founded, by then it had 62 houses, 2 stores, a post office, and a telephone exchange. Streets were laid out in a pedestrian-friendly open grid, with monikers like "Shipway," "Northship," "Flagship," and "Admiral." The two-story houses had steeply pitched roofs and stucco exteriors.Dundalk, along with Essex, Maryland have often the butt of jokes from other residents of metropolitan Baltimore who view the working-class community as a "white trash" town full of tacky excesses. While the population is primarily working class, it is an older town, with a pedestrian-friendly appeal. Many residents are indeed hard-working and take pride in home ownership and their neighborhood.