The B&O Railroad Museum, the birthplace of American railroading, is pleased to announce that Benjamin H. Griswold, IV will co-chair the Museum’s $38 million dollar capital campaign with Joe Hinrichs, President and CEO of the CSX Corporation, to transform the Museum’s campus in preparation for the 200th Anniversary of American Railroading in 2027.
The B&O Railroad Museum is a historic site located in Baltimore, Maryland, on the original grounds of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad, the first commercially chartered railroad in the country in 1827. The Museum’s campus extends 40 acres into Southwest/West Baltimore and contains the first mile of commercial railroad track ever laid in the country, eight historic buildings, including the 1851 Mt. Clare Station (designated a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Site) and the beautiful 1884 Roundhouse. As a national historic landmark, the Museum annually receives visitors from all 50 United States and over 40 countries.
The Museum will restore the South Car Works building located on its property, the oldest, continuously operating railroad repair facility in the United States if not the world, 1869 – 1990. In restoring this nationally significant 33,000 square feet building and making it the new entrance to the Museum, the Museum will reimagine its campus flow to face Southwest Baltimore to spark community economic development. The restored building will create space for an Innovation Hall to exhibit the present and future of American railroading technology, add state-of-the-art educational space, and house the Museum’s extensive historical archives.
Ben Griswold is the great-great-great-great grandson of Alex Brown, who in 1800 founded Alex Brown & Sons, the first investment bank in the United States. It was also at Alex Brown’s house where Baltimore merchants convened to charter the first American common carrier railroad to compete against New York merchants who were investing in the canal system. The B&O Railroad was conceived with the goal to reach the Ohio River from Baltimore to transport goods west. The B&O Railroad reached the Ohio River in 1852 and ultimately expanded over 10,000 miles. Today, railroads facilitate over $2 billion dollars a day of economic commerce in the country.
-via Press Release
