"Dr. B" and the Elkridge Heritage Society

The handsome Victorian on Elkridge’s Main Street now known as the Brumbaugh House was built around 1870 and began serving as a doctor's office in the nineteenth century. The home’s most famous resident, Dr. Benjamin Bruce Brumbaugh, started his own sixty-year-long career working and living at the house in 1919. Dr. Brumbaugh served thousands of Elkridge residents over the decades and the house continues to tell his story today. Since 1985, the Elkridge Heritage Society has operated the house as a small museum to share the long history of medical care in their community.

Born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Brumbaugh graduated from the University of Maryland Medical School with degrees in both pharmacy and medicine. When the United States entered World War I, Brumbaugh enlisted as a doctor for the U.S. Army. He was stationed at Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County where three infantry divisions trained before deployment to Europe. Brumbaugh tended to many of the 400,000 servicemen who passed through Fort Meade during the war.

After his discharge the military at the war’s end in 1918, a former advisor from the University of Maryland shared the news that Elkridge needed a temporary doctor. The town’s regular practitioner Dr. Ericson had suffered a stroke and was unable to work. When his predecessor passed away two months later, Dr. Brumbaugh took over the practice permanently.

For nearly fifty years, Brumbaugh worked alongside his wife, Miriam Smith, who was herself a doctor’s daughter up until her death in 1958. Over much of that time, Dr. Brumbaugh charged just $2 for an office visit or ​$3 for a house call. Over the years, Dr. Brumbaugh (or Dr. B as many of his patients called him) became something of a local celebrity with an office full of patients from the early morning to late evening. He did not raised his fees until 1969—but then it only went up by a dollar. In a 1970 Sun interview, Brumbaugh explained:

“I’d rather treat them for free of charge than have them think I’m overcharging. I was never out for the almighty dollar. I work just to keep alive, not for what I can get out of it.”

That same year, the community recognized his fifty years of service to the Elkridge community. Nearly four hundred neighbors and long-time patients pooled $3,900 in donations to buy the doctor a brand-new Mercury sedan. Howard County even changed the name of a road off Main Street to Brumbaugh Street in his honor.

Dr. Brumbaugh served three generations of Elkridge residents and continued working until he was ninety years old. By one resident’s estimation, he brought “thousands” of Elkridge babies into the world. Dr. Brumbaugh never kept count but reportedly delivered ten children for one family alone. There are many area residents who still proudly call themselves “Brumbaugh Babies.”

The year after Dr. Brumbaugh’s death in 1985, the Elkridge Heritage Society and local Rotary Club bought the home to preserve the doctor’s office and waiting room. A group of volunteer residents helped turn the second floor into an apartment to help pay the mortgage on the new local history museum. Fortunately, their efforts have preserved Doctor B’s story for residents and visitors to continue to appreciate today.

5825 Main Street, Elkridge MD 21075

Chase Brexton Health Care was founded in 1978 as a gay men's STD screening clinic. The clinic operated as program of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore from 1978 until 1989. In 1989, Chase Brexton became an independent healthcare provider retaining its ties to the LGBT community and greatly expanding its health care services. As an acknowledgement of their origins, the new organization took the name Chase Brexton because the GLCCB was located at the intersection of Chase and Brexton Streets.

After operating many years at Cathedral and Eager Streets, Chase Brexton Health Services purchased the Monumental Life Building at 1111 North Charles Street in 2012 and by the end of 2013 had transformed the buildings from offices into a new health clinic. The work included repairing the limestone exterior, even keeping and repairing the signature gold lettering spelling out “MONUMENTAL LIFE.” Original marble walls and floors were restored and imitation gold leaf ceiling was refinished using the original methods. An original wood-paneled 1928 board room was fully restored after having been subdivided into offices.

The move enabled Chase Brexton to continue to expand its services to the broader community while maintaining its long standing ties to the LGBT community in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. An iconic Mount Vernon Building had not only found a new owner, but found a new life and promises to serve as a great asset for years to come.

1111 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Home of the "Wizard of the Operating Room"

Born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1858, Howard Atwood Kelly attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1877 and his M.D. in 1882. In 1889, he became the first professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Johns Hopkins University launching a 30-year career at the school.

Kelly is remembered—along with William Osler, Professor of Medicine, William Stewart Halsted, Professor of Surgery, and William H. Welch, Professor of Pathology—as one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was called a "wizard of the operating room" and was an early user of radium to treat cancer.

1408 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217

First Female Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Born in Central City, Colorado, on November 9, 1871, Florence Rena Sabin, M.D. (1871-1953) was the youngest daughter of a mining engineer. After her mother's death from sepsis, Florence and her sister moved first to Chicago, then to stay with her paternal grandparents in Vermont.

She earned a bachelor's degree in 1893 from Smith College, then went to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where she became the first female graduate. She returned to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine a few years later on a research fellowship. She started teaching in the Department of Anatomy in 1902, with a promotion to associate professor in 1905 and finally full professor of embryology and histology in 1917, becoming the first female full professor at the college.

She introduced techniques for staining living cells and played an important role in the reform of Colorado's health laws. Her statue still stands in the U.S. Capitol.

1325 Park Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217