Mr. Vickers' Building and His Inventive Tenants

Vickers Building, 2014
(Photo Credit: Charmcityhistory.com)

    Much has been said about the Vickers Building (219-231 East Redwood Street, once German Street) mainly associated with 2001 preservationist efforts by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Maryland Historical Trust, in coordination with the City of Baltimore's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) and Preservation Maryland.  Baltimore Heritage highlighted that the permit for this 'new' Vickers Building (to replace the old Vickers Building with ornate Second Empire style with Mansard roofs and complex architecture details) was issued on May 19, 1904, merely 3 months after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.  

Old Vickers Building, pre 1904
(Drawing, Courtesy "Monument City")

    Architects like Meyers and Eitelman after the fire took practical approaches to design that focused on cost-efficiency and quick rebuilding practices that focused on fire-conscious planning.  Brick facing, flat roofs, and receding bay windows were employed vs. Mansard roofs, and protruding bay windows which were designs believed to have contributed to the Fire's spread.

    Mr. George R. Vickers, Jr. (1843-1916), whose surname is predominantly etched in multiple places upon the building, was the son of a prominent businessmen of Baltimore by the same name who helped found one of the oldest banks in the city, National Marine Bank of Baltimore (currently at 33 South Gay Street), incorporated in 1810. Like his father, George Jr. was Vice-President of the bank and he was also determined to erect the four-story brick office building replacing his father's previous office building.  It was built costing

Vickers Building Entrance, 2014
(Photo Credit: Charmcityhistory.com)

$50,000 and Mr. Vickers Jr. first advertised office space as being desirable to stock brokers and bankers in the Baltimore Sun in November 1904.

    While it is well know that a current occupant of the building (since 1950) is Werner's Restaurant, with its remarkably intact example of art deco interior complete with late Moderne lunch counter, there have been a few interesting and odd inventors with historical connections who have occupied its walls.  Five years after opening, a New Jersey-based business by the name of The Collins Wireless Telephone Company established an office in the Vickers Building in September 1909 - it was to demonstrate to Baltimore a novel system that was essentially one of the earliest predecessors of today's modern cellular telephone.

A. Frederick Collins in Newark NJ Lab
(Photo Credit: sparkmuseum.com)

    Archie Frederick Collins, resident of New York City, filed Patent Number 814,942, dated March 13, 1906, entitled Wireless Telephony by stating "my invention relates to the art of transmitting and receiving articulate speech electronically between two or more stations without connecting wires."  Indeed, a Baltimore Sun article reported the demonstration resulted in conversation that "could be distinctly heard at both telephones, one being located on a scow off the United Fruit Company's pier, on Pratt Street, and the other on the pier of the Standard Oil Company, a distance of about 500 feet.... Voices at both ends could be distinctly understood and distinguished, being transmitted in a  clear, liquid tone, coming as plainly as over the ordinary telephone."

Collins Wireless Telephone Company
Stock Certificate, April 1909

   An article, published by Collins' assistant in Modern Electronics, August 1908, gave a somewhat odd foreshadowing of today's modern cell phone: The Collins Wireless Telephone will make "it possible to telephone from automobiles to the garage where help is needed... every auto will be provided with a portable wireless telephone. Then in the event of the inevitable accident the phone can be taken out, set up ready for use and communication can be established."

    You can read about Mr. Collin ... Genius or Fraud? but, suffice it to say, in 1911 four officers of the company were indicted for using the mails to defraud in selling worthless stock and he was charged and convicted of giving fraudulent demonstrations of his wireless telephone on October 14, 1909 at the Electrical Show in Madison Square Garden, NY for the purpose of selling stock in the Company.

Thomas Marshall Smith
Inventor (1851-1934)
(Courtesy: Baltimore Sun)

    The Vickers Building hosted another inventor, Thomas Marshall Smith (great-grandson to Chief Justice John J. Marshall), merely a month later in October 1909, demonstrated his Baltimore invention in room 209 - it was known as The St. Margaret's Invalid Lifter.  The British Journal of Nursing featured it in 1910 as being "the nurse's friend."  It was only advertised in local papers for one month having the recommendations of doctors from Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Government eventually attaining Patent Number 976,307, dated November 22, 1910, entitled Hydraulic Invalid Lifter.  

    By May 28, 1911, while there were numerous lifts for invalids being used, his was hailed by the Baltimore Sun as being "A Boon To The Sick" since the heavy lifting was done hydraulically through a pump with the simple press of a foot on a pedal at the base near the floor.  According to a feature article, Mr. Smith came to his idea through a desire to help his mother, who late in life lost the use of her limbs and was large and heavy.

        George Vickers Jr continued as a well respected businessman, predominantly as Vice President of the bank for 30 years, but was at one time involved in a Court of Appeals of Maryland suit from a judgement he received over a contract land tract 1903 purchase dispute in which he lost in Baltimore Circuit Court against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.  Oddly enough, during the State Court appeal, Edgar Allen Poe and Albert C. Ritchie argued against Mr. Vickers on behalf of the City.  He  lived at 1317 North Eutaw Street until his death but his memory lives on as do the novel ideas of the tenants in his building.