Frederick's EnlighteninG Square Corner

Incandescent light bulb hanging above Downtown Frederick's famed Square Corner, the intersection of Market and Patrick streets (ca. 1906)

May and June of 1888 was an "enlightening" time in Frederick City, both literally and figuratively. Crews of workman were busily planting poles and stringing wire for a system of incandescent lights throughout the city. These were being placed at 60 designated spots which included most major and secondary street, along with alley intersections. Lights were also installed at prime public use locations such as City Hall, the Frederick Jail, the baseball grounds (Frederick Fairgrounds), the Black Horse Tavern and the Pennsylvania Rail Road Station.

Gas lighting had been installed in town nearly forty years prior around 1850. The Gas Works was located to the east of town, on East Church Street extended. This stretch of roadway, leading in and out of town, would fittingly take the moniker of Gas House Pike. In 1887, the municipality turned to the new innovation of modern electric lighting. The contract for this project was awarded to the New York Electric Construction Company out of New York City. At a cost of $17,000, a municipal light plant was soon built, having a capacity to illuminate 76 lamps.

Article from the Frederick Daily News (May 30, 1888)

First block of West Patrick Street, looking west (ca. 1916)

This was just the start. Within two years, the Frederick Electric Light and Power Company came into being. $30,000 was the price tag for a plant would boast a 2,500 lamp capacity. Homes, stores, and factories of town could now be provided with light, heat and power.

By the end of the decade (and century), electricity would give birth to a new mode of transportation that would revolutionize Frederick. This was a trolley system that would eventually link Frederick to Middletown and Hagerstown to the west, and in time, Thurmont to the north. Not only was this innovation a boon for passenger transport, it greatly aided in the movement of farm goods to market, and commercial delivery. Braddock Heights, a concoction of the new electric rail line and its parent company, would arise as a result.

As the trolley made its debut in Frederick, so did the first automobiles. The streets of town now became extremely more dangerous, and at an exponential rate. Trolleys ran in the middle of principal roadways such as Market and Patrick streets. To each side was the right of way for motor cars, and the age-old transportation modes involving natural horsepower—vehicles such as carriages and wagons pulled by horses. It didn’t take long to employ the need for some sort of traffic control at the major intersections. The busiest location of all was the town’s central square at the junction of Market and Patrick streets, better known by the name Square Corner.

As travel modes had improved and traffic grew, Frederick lost the opportunities once connected to having the Square Corner serve as an occasional social center of activity and events as was the case with small towns sprinkled throughout the county. It, however, remained as a busy pedestrian crossing point. A police officer would be positioned here to help keep law and order over traffic of the bipedal and vehicular kind.

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Under the shade of an umbrella, a Frederick police officer controls traffic the old-fashioned way (ca. 1920). Looking east on East Patrick Street from the Square Corner

Early traffic signal in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1924, a newfangled invention would be added to the Square Corner, one the likes had never been seen before. This was a multi-colored light, which had a much greater purpose than the simplistic overhead light which had been installed in this locale some 36 years earlier. This was not a spotlight, it was an enforcer. Frederick, Maryland, would meet its first traffic light!

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Frederick Daily News (June 7, 1924)

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As another 36 years came and went, so did the interurban trolley system. Market Street would become one-way northbound, however Patrick Street would remain a two-way travel thoroughfare. This embodiment of the National Pike through Frederick City still served as the main route east and west through Maryland, and was as busy as ever in this era predating superhighways.

At a time before Interstate70, not to mention US15 as a viable "north-south" bypass of downtown, the traffic light(s) at this location would lay witness to thousands of residents passing through Frederick’s central apex. This would hold true for an equal number of "out of town" visitors either heading to the legendary Francis Scott Key Hotel, one block to the west, or simply traveling through. Among these were key tourists of note, even United States presidents. We know with certainty the list included Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. John F. Kennedy can be put on the list as well, as he was driven through Frederick’s Square Corner as a US senator while on the presidential campaign trail. He spent a whirlwind three hours in town on May 13th, 1960.

Frederick's bustling Square Corner looking northwest with the Francis Scott Key Hotel in the background (ca. 1960). Note the officer directing traffic to the right in the picture.

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​Are you interested in Frederick history? Want to learn more, and from this author?

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