Community Corner

Arbutus Patch Answers II: What About Violetville?

Looking to old maps to learn how we got here.

It's gratifying to see the about the locations of Arbutus and Halethorpe generated so much discussion.

There was another discovery about the 1918 map of Baltimore that I intended to share, and a tip o' the hat to Patch contributor and blogger Sean Tully for unwittingly setting me up with this comment:

"So where does the Baltimore County part of Violetville come in?"

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Ever notice that Baltimore City is shaped like the state of Nevada? It's perfectly square along the top and sides, with a long slope on the southwest corner.

The northwest corner of Baltimore begins at the intersection of Park Heights and Slade Avenue and travels due south until hitting Frederick Road, where it veers to the southeast at Overbrook Road, skirting Baltimore National Cemetery and Louden Park toward Caton Avenue.

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Were the western border of Baltimore City to continue due south, it would divide UMBC and run to the Patapsco at Elkridge Landing, encompassing most of Catonsville, Relay, Arbutus, Halethorpe and the rest of this area.

HaleButus is the reason why the city limits of Baltimore aren't all straight lines.

It isn't as though Baltimore City hasn't tried to get its clutches on the bucolic southwestern communities The city tried many times over the years since Baltimore County was established as a separate entity in 1851.

Baltimore City coveted the tax base of these affluent, emerging suburban areas. An annexation plan that had been floated in 1912 ambitiously included vast portions of Reisterstown, Woodlawn and Ellicott City as well. County residents voted it down.

The city limit defined by the annexation of 1888 put the southwestern corner of Baltimore at roughly Old Frederick and Athol, leaving Irvington, Yale Heights and everything west and south of Wilkens and Caton in Baltmore County.

The last time Baltimore City was annexed was 1918. The annexation plan was drawn up by a lawyer, S. S. Field, who was the city solicitor.

β€œMy reading of the map is that straight-line boundaries were drawn from point to point without much consideration of what neighborhoods they may have cut across,” said Edward Papenfuse of the Baltimore City Archives.

And oh, they wanted to include the southwest communities, which would have helped fatten tax revenues.

Folks in the southwest corner, however, were having none of it.

Check out the names of large property owners in this area on : Benson, Deboy, Francis. Enoch Pratt had a huge estate. In addition, there were hundreds of acres of railroad property. The B&O had more than 760 acres cultivated at Halethorpe Farms. Nobody wanted to pay city tax rates.

According to the Baltimore Sun's Fred Rasmussen, in 1918 Carville Benson and Fred Talbott led a campaign to keep Halethorpe and environs out of Baltimore City and remaining in the county.

So now the city limit stops at Frederick and Overbrook and veers to the southeast to avoid HaleButus. The line cuts right through Violetville, making some city residents and the remainder county denizens.

Blame it on a lawyer.


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