the Baltimore City Detention Center. But the Warden’s House survived and won recognition for its unique Gothic design when the Baltimore Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation made it a local landmark in 1986. The site itself has an even longer history as the site of the city's first jail erected in 1800.

In the late eighteenth century, a local sheriff controlled the city jail and, according to John H.B. Latrobe, revenue from the jail's operation made up "most lucrative part of his income." For the new jail, the state legislature established a new system where the warden worked under the supervision of a board of visitors and was paid a fixed salary. In 1832, Latrobe called it "on the whole, an excellent and well conducted establishment."

However, most Baltimoreansfound no justice or humanity here. Early prisoners included famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who spent seven weeks there in 1831. In October 1832, the jail held seventy-five people: forty as "debtors" and thirty-five on criminal charges. The latter group included two eleven-year-old Black boys charged with setting fire to a lumberyard.

By the early 1850s, reform-minded observers sought a new jail where the city could avoid mixing children with "old and hardened prisoners." For example, in February 1851, a grand jury reported on the "inappropriateness of the structure" and the "limited capacity" of the building (then holding over 240 people) to the judges of the City Court. In 1855, a design competition awarded the project to Thomas and James M. Dixon, construction began in 1857, and, by December