Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near Canton Baltimore, MD

Baltimore was established in 1729 and named for the Irish barony of Baltimore held by the Calvert family, proprietors of Maryland; its port had been established in 1706 for the tobacco trade, and the city incorporated in 1796.

Baltimore separated from Baltimore County in 1851 to become an independent city, the only city in Maryland not located within a county, and it is the most populous independent city in the United States as well as Maryland's largest city.

Baltimore's population was 585,708 in the 2020 Census, down from 620,961 in 2010, with an estimated 569,997 by 2025; it has about 255,668 households averaging 2.16 persons each and a median household income of about $62,177.

The successful American defense of Fort McHenry on September 13-14, 1814, during the War of 1812, inspired Francis Scott Key to write 'The Star-Spangled Banner', adopted as the US national anthem in 1931.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, chartered in 1827, was the nation's first railroad, and its Mount Clare Station is preserved as a railroad museum.

Baltimore became the first Roman Catholic diocese in the United States in 1789.

Johns Hopkins University was founded in 1876 on a $7 million bequest from the merchant Johns Hopkins, and its hospital followed in 1889.

Baltimore's other longstanding institutions include the University of Maryland, Baltimore (1807), Loyola University Maryland (1852), Coppin State University (1900) and the University of Baltimore (1925).

Druid Hill Park, inaugurated in 1860 across 745 acres, ranks with New York's Central Park among the oldest landscaped public parks in the United States, and it holds the Maryland Zoo (founded 1876) and the Rawlings Conservatory (1888).