Baltimore History

Earl Pruce, a local historian and retired librarian of the old News American who saved as many old newspaper stories and photographs as his department could house, died of cancer complications Tuesday at his Northwest Baltimore home. He was 97. Born in Baltimore and raised on Quantico Avenue, he attended Forest Park High School, Maryland Institute College of Art and the old European Conservatory of Music on St. Paul Street, where he studied piano. In 1927, he joined the Baltimore American, then a daily morning paper, as a personal copy boy to the managing editor.

Last week's raid on a Baltimore employment agency and the conviction of a local restaurateur remind us that undocumented workers cook our meals, stitch our T-shirts and perform invisible but indispensable labor throughout the city. The recent crackdown is noteworthy for targeting the employers, but immigrant laborers ultimately bear the highest costs when the law is enforced. In this regard, the long history of "illegal" labor in Baltimore offers a different context to consider the 69 workers arrested last week.

The renovated pagoda in Patterson Park, once a symbol of the area's decline, is now a bright sign of turnaround. Once a month, volunteers clean up the community landmark and beautify the area around it. The Victorian gem provides a luxurious view of the harbor.

The tale of Mary Pickersgill, the hardworking Baltimore seamstress who made the Star-Spangled Banner in 1814, will soon be told in signs outside her East Pratt Street house in 17 different languages. Following in Boston's Freedom Trail footsteps, Mayor Martin O'Malley unveiled a new Heritage Walk yesterday on the Inner Harbor promenade, near the trailhead of a 5-kilometer Baltimore history lesson that will be installed over the summer. O'Malley said the path would enable city dwellers and visitors to connect dots in a tapestry of time spanning four centuries.

The stream slices Baltimore's western side indiscriminately, rushing through villages and slums, past playgrounds and factories, forests and railroad tracks. And the trail, now running alongside it, is equally oblivious to predetermined urban boundaries, a 14-mile paved path that belongs to Franklintown as much as Rosemont, Mill Hill as much as Otterbein, Pigtown as much as Westport. The Gwynns Falls Trail, more than 100 years in the making and ready to be celebrated today, welcomes anyone.

Baltimore's vacant Peale Museum would be turned into the Baltimore City History Center, a cultural attraction where people can learn about Baltimore history and architecture, if proponents can reach agreement with city officials on plans to transform it. The history center would house three nonprofit organizations that work to encourage public interest in Baltimore history and architecture - the Baltimore City Historical Society, Baltimore Heritage and...

A FEW YEARS ago, after a disappointment of some forgotten nature, Turkey Joe Trabert, Baltimore beer-can collector and sports aficionado, announced that he would never again attend the Tops In Sports Banquet, which was held annually for several years at the Towson Center. Not the kind to sit at home and brood, Turkey Joe organized his own winter sports affair at Jerry D's restaurant and bar on Harford Road, proclaiming it The Not The Tops In Sports Banquet, its purpose camaraderie, nostalgia and fund raising for the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum.

Baltimore's history-buff mayor, who evokes the city's 1814 battle with the British in speeches on homeland security and racial unity, has found a new way to play up the valiant fight that inspired Francis Scott Key's little ditty. Under an executive order Mayor Martin O'Malley is set to sign today, all city office buildings, parks, police stations and firehouses will swap their standard American flags for the 15-star, 15-stripe variety that waved over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore 190 years ago. The banner already has been unfurled at City Hall and a few parks.

Leon Davis Holsey, a retired social science professor at Coppin State College who infused African culture into the curriculum during the four decades he taught there, died July 10 of cancer at his Northwood home. He was 83. Born in Baltimore and raised on McCulloh and on Division streets, he attended Frederick Douglass High School. Finding the attitude there elitist, he dropped out of the 10th grade and worked in shipyards. He also sold newspapers, scrubbed floors and marble steps, and cleaned yards.

On Dec. 4, 1831, 10-year-old Mary Pets put the last of hundreds and hundreds of elegant stitches in a sampler she made for "her dear parents" while a pupil at the School for Colored Girls of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Mary Pets' sampler is still in the archives of the Oblate Sisters, at their mother house west of Arbutus, the oldest in the Sisters' collection definitely made by one of their students. The only older sampler known to be by an Oblate pupil is in the Maryland Historical Society.