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Heritage Walk is a 3.2 mile walking trail through four centuries of Baltimore history, linking about 20 historic sites and museums across four city districts. Its sites tell stories of a young nation defending itself, the Civil War's divisions in city and country, the growth of commerce and industry in a rising port city, and the struggles and triumphs of the diverse peoples who shaped the American mosaic. Along the route are the site of the first fatalities of America's Civil War in 1861, the house where Mary Pickersgill made the Star Spangled Banner that flew over Fort McHenry in 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the National Anthem, the East Coast's largest museum of African American history and culture, the mansion of Charles Carroll, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, the nation's third oldest synagogue building beside its largest regional Jewish museum, and the Phoenix Shot Tower, once the country's tallest, where shotgun pellets were made by dropping molten lead more than 200 feet into water. The trail also passes through districts associated with the Inner Harbor's port growth and waterfront revitalization, Little Italy's celebrated ethnic community, Historic Jonestown's immigrant past and museums, and City Center's role as a center of government, commerce, and memorials to Marylanders who defended the nation. More broadly, downtown Baltimore is presented as a city founded as a major shipping port in the 1700s and still one of the nation's most active ports, with distinctive neighborhoods that include Historic Charles Street, Mount Vernon, Westside, City Center, the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Camden Yards, and South Baltimore.

Baltimore, Maryland · United States