Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Martinsburg Shops
a.k.a. See Also: 80004415
300 East Martin Street, Martinsburg, WVThe B&O Railroad Martinsburg complex is one of the most important railroad sites in the United States. It possesses national significance in not one, but two distinct areas.
First, the shops are a unique example of innovative nineteenth-century engineering and industrial architecture. In particular, the West Roundhouse possesses an early cast-iron framing system devised by a renowned nineteenth-century civil engineer, railroad manager, and economist Albert Fink. It is also the oldest fully covered roundhouse in the United States. The two auxiliary shop buildings, the Machine/Woodworking Shop and Car Shop were designed by nineteenth-century architect Johann Niernsee and are among the B&O's most significant remaining structures from the post-Civil War period. Individually the buildings are significant from an engineering standpoint, but as a group, these three structures form a stellar collection of nineteenth-century railroad buildings.
Second, the shops played a major role in the first days of "The Great Railway Strike of 1877," a pivotal episode in American labor history. Following an aborted work stoppage by a handful of B&O employees in Baltimore on the morning of July 16, 1877, railroad workers at the Martinsburg shops stopped work en-masse. The killing of a striker outside the Martinsburg Shops the next morning helped spark and solidify the violent nationwide protest against the low wages paid to industrial workers. At Martinsburg, the strike unfolded in and around the shops, yet the complex escaped the destruction that occurred at many other railroad centers where strike activity occurred.
The combination of two areas of significance requires an extended examination of the complex's importance. In the narrative below, the technological significance of the shops is discussed first and the labor significance of the shops second.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.