Pennsylvania architect John Augustus Dempwolf shaped much of Taneytown’s late nineteenth-century built environment. He designed Taneytown Presbyterian Church in 1883, the Hagan House and Grocery Store in 1890, and Trinity Lutheran Church in 1896, while several other prominent residents had houses, stores, and even stables created by his firm. The Dempwolf buildings shared red brick with red mortar joints and slate roofs. The thin brick came from Tobias Eckenrode’s brick yard near the railroad tracks, and Taneytown brick mason Daniel Fair constructed each building. Other notable works by the firm included the Edward Reindollar House and Barn in 1896 on York Street and the Birnie Trust Company in 1898 on East Baltimore Street. The Birnie Bank and House and the Hagan House and Store show two different ways Dempwolf adapted a private house into a commercial structure while keeping living and work spaces separate. In 1894, Dr. Clotworthy Birnie wrote that after the Frederick and Pennsylvania Line Railroad reached Taneytown in the latter part of summer, about 65 buildings had been put up, most of them dwelling houses.