Baltimore Transit Co. - Railroad Stock Certificate
Inv# RS4619A Stock
Stock printed by Barton-Gillet Co., Baltimore, Md.
The Baltimore Transit Company (BTCO) was a privately owned public transit operator that provided streetcar and bus service in Baltimore from 1935. It was the successor to the old United Railways and Electric Company, formed in 1899 to consolidate and operate Baltimore's streetcar lines. The company was purchased in 1948 by National City Lines and the streetcar system was then run down in favor of buses, a process repeated in many places, which became known as the Great American Streetcar Scandal. The last streetcar ran in 1963. Between 1940-1959, Baltimore Transit also operated trolley buses (or "trackless trolleys") on six lines, including Howard Street and Federal Street.
BTCO was absorbed by what is now the Maryland Transit Administration in 1970. The BTC oversaw the elimination of streetcar service in favor of bus service in 1963 when the last streetcar routes, the number 8 providing service from Catonsville to Towson and the number 15 (Overlea to Walbrook Junction) were eliminated on November 3, 1963.
In the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, the BTCO fired a white bus driver who claimed to be the Grand Wizard of the Baltimore Ku Klux Klan. A labor arbitrator ruled in favor of BTCO in this firing, which was in part spurred by other white drivers threatening to strike if the man was not dismissed.
A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.
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