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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The rise and fall of bread bakeries in West Baltimore
A stubborn fire last month in a 100-year-old West Baltimore structure halted Amtrak and MARC trains and caused families along Bentalou Street to be evacuated. News reports described the source of the prolonged burning as mattresses that had been stored in a brick warehouse. To describe 2140 Edmondson Ave. as a mattress warehouse is accurate, but the building had an earlier life and served a different purpose. It opened in 1925 as the Ward Baking Company and was once one of the ruling commercial bakeries in the city. The company was not alone as a bread baker — Greater Rosemont and Sandtown-Winchester were once the commercial bread basket of Baltimore. Ward Baking was a firm founded in New York City by two Irish-born brothers, James and Hugh Ward. They may have had a single oven when they started, but the firm was a resounding success and eventually there were Ward baking plants in Pittsburgh, then Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. By 1923, its flagship product, Bond Bread, was described as 'the best-selling bread in the United States.' A company history says that Ward 'pioneered the use of technology to mass-produce bread, reducing the need for hand-kneading and shaping.' Baltimore was in the company's sights as a place to locate another bread factory after World War I. Ward executives brought in their architect, Corrie Comstock, who specialized in industrial plants, to design what became their big bakery on Edmondson Avenue. Residents in the Greater Rosemont neighborhood were not happy with the plant, but nevertheless, it opened and flourished until the mid-80s. Known as the Ward plant, its corporate name was Continental Baking Co. and through mergers and acquisitions, it wound up with several patented names for its bread. There was Ward's Tip Top Bread and the somewhat better-known Wonder Bread. But the Edmondson Avenue plant had another product line, the Hostess Twinkie, the snack cake that was invented in Illinois in 1930. Hostess Twinkies were a staple of Baltimore convenience stores for decades and competed heavily against the Philadelphia-baked TastyKake. Baltimore's own favorite sweet, the Berger cookie, was by comparison a very different confection. For decades, Berger cookies were baked and chocolate-smothered in a (by comparison) almost artisanal kitchen-bakery in East Baltimore on Aiken Street and sold mainly at city market stalls. Baltimore cannot claim that Hostess Twinkies are a local product. Research into this treat seems to indicate that while they were not baked on Edmondson Avenue, they were delivered in quantity there and distributed throughout Maryland from that location. The Ward-Continental-Twinkie baking dynamo had plenty of local competition only blocks away. There were numerous food-related factories located along the Amtrak train tracks. Freight trains delivered raw materials and the industrial zoning along the rail tracks created an industry-friendly setting. (Don't forget Mrs. Filbert's margarine plant along the tracks a little ways south.) Close by, at West Lafayette Avenue, was the Acme Markets warehouse, which also included its regional bakery. Schmidt's Bakery, in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood, lasted the longest of the clutch of West Baltimore industrial bake houses. Its big plant, at Carey and Laurens Street, was about a mile from the Ward plant. The third mighty competitor was the Hauswald Bakery at Edmondson Avenue and Franklintown Road. On a warm summer night, the presence of two huge bakeries seven blocks apart on Edmondson Avenue must have made for some sweet aromas. Hauswald's sold out to Schmidt's in 1989 and production continued for a while longer. Another Edmondson Avenue mainstay of bread consumption was the old Harley's sandwich shop that had an outpost near both the Ward (Continental) and Hauswald Bakery. The Harley shop (one of many in the region) was in the old Edmondson Avenue Pennsylvania Railroad Station. Harley's was a busy sandwich destination and consumed mountains of submarine sandwich rolls in its heyday, the same period when the Schmidt's, Ward and Hauswald ovens were keeping Baltimore well-fueled with product for toast and sandwiches. But Harley's and its owner, Harley T. Brinsfield, used another bakery, the one that survived them all and remains in business today. As he told his listeners on his nightly jazz radio program, Harley Brinsfield's breads came from the H&S Bakery in East Baltimore. Have a news tip? Contact Jacques Kelly at and 410-332-6570.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Dozens in West Baltimore evacuated as 6-alarm fire burns mattress warehouse
May 13 (UPI) -- More than two dozen West Baltimore residents were evacuated from their homes overnight as firefighters continued to battle a six-alarm blaze at a mattress warehouse that was sending plumes of smoke above the city. The Baltimore City Fire Department confirmed in an early Tuesday statement on social media that at least 30 residents near the fire at Edmondson Avenue have been temporarily evacuated. Officials were also working to restore Amtrak services by 2:30 a.m. EDT as overhead lines on tracks abutting the rear of the warehouse at Edmondson Avenue and Bantalou Street were de-energized due to the fire. Amtrak confirmed online that local municipal officials had placed "a hold on all tracks in West Baltimore." Firefighters were dispatched to the multi-story mattress warehouse shortly before 7 p.m. Monday to find what officials described as a "heavy fire," which was upgraded to a four-alarm blaze 22 minutes later. Some 200 firefighters were battling the blaze, officials said. No injures have been reported. During a press conference on Monday night, Baltimore fire chief James Wallace said it had become a six-alarm blaze. "This has become a bigger city operation now," he said. He said the building, which stands three stories above ground, also has two sub-level floors. "It's a large basement area. It's the size of the building and we're told it's stacked full of mattresses," he said. He added that authorities are unsure of exactly what is fueling fire. While they've been told it's mattresses, there were also informed at one point paint was also in the facility, concrete and brick. "We're fighting what we see," he said. In an earlier press conference, Wallace told reporters the challenge was they were fighting the blaze from the outside and they had yet to gain access to the large facility. "Given the size of this building, the size of the fire, we're having to be very cautious, very meticulous as we move in there," he said. The cause of the fire was under investigation, and the blaze was still uncontrolled early Tuesday. Wallace said they are working to prevent it from spreading to other buildings. Wind, he explained, which is usually a hindrance, was aiding firefighters by pushing the blaze toward the back of the facility where the train tracks were and away from nearby buildings. "That's what we're trying to do, we're trying to cut this off," he said.
