Perry Hall around 1950: A Suburban Community Develops
by David Marks
Historian, Perry Hall Improvement Association
During the First and Second World Wars, many residents of Perry Hall served their
country, some paying the ultimate sacrifice. When Perry Hall Elementary School opened in
1956, a plaque recognizing these soldiers was placed at the base of the school flagpole.
Old and weathered, it is the only permanent structure acknowledging these Perry Hall
veterans.
Perry Hall's contributions to the war effort did not end with this memorial plaque.
Like most Americans, residents conserved supplies and grew Victory gardens during the war,
and Perry Hall's farms furnished crops for soldiers and other sectors of the economy.
Immediately after the war, Perry Hall residents banded together to collect crutches,
wheelchairs, and other equipment for veterans returning home. It was one of our finest
moments: a spirit of compassion and unity reflective of a small town pulling together
during difficult times.
Out of this effort came the Perry Hall Improvement Association. No formal organization
had ever been needed to unify the Perry Hall community, where families knew each other and
problems could easily be solved through the neighborhood grapevine. During the Great
Depression, for example, families often bartered their crops. since money was virtually
useless. The Second World War, however, brought an end to the Great Depression, a surge in
industrial development, and a mass exodus of city residents to the suburbs. It was
inevitable that Perry Hall would grow A permanent organization was needed to lobby for the
needs of the changing community.
The first meeting of the Perry Hall Improvement Association was held on July 31st,
1945, as the Second World War was coming to a close. Forty-nine residents were present.
From that original meeting, an organization evolved which has fought for appropriate
zoning, development, and community standards for over a half-century.
The Perry Hall Improvement Association was able to obtain the community's first street
lights, at Joppa, Forge, and Cross Roads and Stirred and Boer Avenues. It prevailed on the
State Roads Commission to lower the speed limit through Perry Hall from 50 to 30 miles per
hour. It lobbied the school system for extra bus stops for the community's students, who
then attended Stemmers Run High School.
The organization's most active efforts have been in opposing projects deemed
detrimental to the greater Perry Hall community. Shortly after it was founded, for
example, the association worked with St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church and local home
owners to oppose an open-air movie theater on Belair Road. Had this been built, a drive-in
theater would now be resting at the location of the present-day Belmont neighborhood. The
association also opposed a greyhound race track on Forge Road, a trailer camp on Cliffvale
Avenue, and several junk yards throughout Perry Hall.
Rather than just being reactive, the Perry Hall Improvement Association has lobbied for
new projects to serve the community's growing population. Its most successful endeavor,
for example, was the Northeast Library Association, formed to acquire a new public library
in Perry Hall. That effort culminated in 1963, when the Perry Hall library was dedicated
by Baltimore County Executive Spiro T. Agnew, Congressman Clarence Long, and dozens of
local leaders.
During those early years, the Perry Hall Improvement Association was a social nucleus
for the community It hosted dances, parties, and Bingo nights at the old Perry Hall
School, now the Gribbin Center. it also started a Perry Hall tradition, the Halloween
parade, which began in 1949 with a procession of church groups and Scouting units down
Belair and Ebenezer Roads. Perry Hall activist Buddy Butt always played his trademark
accordion.
Back in those days, the community was small enough to still have parades down Belair
Road. Perry Hall was changing, though, and signs of postwar urbanization were everywhere.
William Schaefer built hundreds of brick bungalows in the area between Belair and Ebenezer
Roads, while other neighborhoods were popping up off of Baker Lane and Walter Avenue.
In 1956, the Perry Hall Medical Group opened their building at Belair Road and
Cliffvale Avenue, with offices for doctors and a dentist. Perry Hall's first drug store
opened there in the same building. Meanwhile, land was being churned down the road for
Perry Hall's first shopping center, which opened in 1961 on Ebenezer Road. Perry Hall
Shopping Center, as it was then known, included the community post office, a branch of
Maryland National Bank, Read's, Woolworth' s, and one of the first bowling alleys in the
community.
A visitor to Perry Hall at mid-century would have found a rural village at the
threshold of suburbanization. The community was still a collection of farms and forests,
but the scattered housing developments and new buildings signaled an impending wave of
growth which would change the place forever.
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