Qualla: Lexington Market

Lexington Market: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paul Sableman from St. Louis, MO, CC BY 2.0. On Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in 1782, a bell rang at 2 a.m. on the western edge of what was then Baltimore Town. Farmers from Towson and Reisterstown unloaded their horse-drawn wagons of ham, butter, eggs, and produce. Watermen from the Chesapeake hauled in oysters and crabs from the river. The market ran until noon, when the bell rang again to end the day. The land had been donated by General John Eager Howard, the Revolutionary War officer who had led the Maryland Line at the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781 and would later serve as governor of Maryland. The donation came from his Belvedere estate northwest of town. Lexington Market has been operating in roughly the same spot ever since, making it one of the longest continuously operating public markets in the United States.

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Image: Paul Sableman from St. Louis, MO | CC BY 2.0

Lexington Market: Before the Sheds

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bonnachoven, CC0. For its first nine decades the market had no buildings - just open ground where wagons and stalls were set up on market days. Farmers traveled in from the surrounding countryside; watermen came up from Locust Point and Fells Point. The market was the central food distribution poi...

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Image: Bonnachoven | CC0

Lexington Market: Robert and Rosetta

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Quintin Soloviev, CC BY 4.0. The market's history includes both enslaved people who worked there and the sale of enslaved human beings at the market site. In 2022, a sculpture called Robert and Rosetta was unveiled at the new market building. The two figures represent specific people. Robert was a man enslav...

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Image: Quintin Soloviev | CC BY 4.0

Lexington Market: Faidley's

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Baltimore Heritage from Baltimore, MD, USA, CC0. Faidley's Seafood opened a stand at Lexington Market in 1886. The Faidley family has run it ever since, through five generations. Their lump crab cakes - made of just-picked Maryland blue crab meat, mayonnaise, a single saltine cracker crumbled in for binder, and almost nothing e...

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Image: Baltimore Heritage from Baltimore, MD, USA | CC0

Lexington Market: Real Baltimore

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Acroterion, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lexington Market sits about six blocks north of Oriole Park at Camden Yards and the Inner Harbor's tourist district. It is, deliberately, none of that. Baltimore City Paper named it the best way to introduce outsiders to Baltimore in 2001 and the best place to take out-of-town vi...

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Image: Acroterion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lexington Market: The 2022 Rebuild

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don Woods, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the late 2010s the East Market building had deteriorated to the point where the city and the Baltimore Public Markets Corporation - the nonprofit that manages Lexington Market and several other historic Baltimore markets - decided a complete rebuild was necessary. Construction...

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Image: Don Woods | CC BY-SA 3.0