Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station, Oakland

The Oakland Station is among the most exuberant of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad’s many stations. Built in 1884, it was designed by the architectural firm of Baldwin and Pennington, whose principal architect, E. Francis Baldwin, completed over one hundred stations in a range of styles for the B&O Railroad and its branch lines. After forming a partnership with Josias Pennington in 1883, whom Baldwin had trained as a draftsman, the firm began producing station designs in the Queen Anne Style, of which the Oakland station is one of the finest surviving examples.

Constructed of brick with stone trim, the rectangular Oakland Station is parallel to the tracks. The center section of the station, which typically contained the ticket office, includes an engaged circular tower on the trackside that enabled the station master to view the approaching trains. The gabled-roof half-story above this section, along with the upper portion of the tower, provides the primary decorative features on the exterior. An elongated, bell-shaped tower roof capped by a finial is sheathed in slate. One-story flanking wings feature gable roofs with deep overhanging eaves supported on large decorative brackets on both sides of the building, as well as the northwest gable end; the gable ends for each wing have bargeboard filled with wood spindlework. The southeast wing (for passengers) has eyebrow dormers, while the northwest wing (for baggage) has small, pitched-roof dormers. Throughout the building are original Queen Anne sash windows.

The Oakland Station is exceptionally well-preserved and is open to the public as a local B&O museum and education center.