[Baltimore fire, 1904] American & Continental Trust Bldg.

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Few American fires of the early twentieth century matched the blaze that swept Baltimore's downtown in February 1904, and this glass negative of the American & Continental Trust Building shows one of the office structures in its path. The fire broke out on February 7 and burned for roughly thirty hours, destroying more than a thousand buildings in the commercial core, and fire companies arrived by rail from cities including Philadelphia, New York and Washington. The negative comes from the National Photo Company, a firm that documented American cities and landmarks in the early 1900s, so it captures the aftermath with the sharp detail of large-format photography.

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