As the Warden’s House inside the Baltimore City Correctional Complex inches closer to the wrecking ball, local nonprofit Baltimore Heritage has shared some significant history about the iconic castle-like, prison yard edifice.

The turreted stone structure as we see it today is what remains of the jail complex that was expanded by two local architects in the 1850s. (The original complex was built in 1800.) The Warden’s House – which did actually have housing for the warden, as well as shelter for a clerk – gained particular historical significance during the city’s dark chapter with slavery.

Per Baltimore Heritage’s Eli Pousson: “From 1859 to 1864, the Baltimore Jail was used to hold hundreds of ‘runaways’ along with Marylanders, both white and Black, who assisted enslaved people as they fled to freedom. At the time, a number of private slave jails operated around the harbor but, for a fee, slaveholders could also leave the men and women they held at the city jail.”

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