Retro Halloween photos taken in Maryland through the years
From spooky goblins to witches and toothy jack-o-laterns, here’s a look at Halloween in Maryland from yesteryear.
- A 36 ft. dinosaur with blinking eyes led by two girls at a Halloween dance.1953. (Dick Stacks/Baltimore Sun)
- Trick-or-treaters in Cockeysville, MD. Oct. 31, 1958. (Ralph Robinson/Baltimore Sun)
- Peter Pumpkin. Oct. 30, 1960. (Baltimore Sun)
- A different view of trick-or-treaters, a small 35 mm. camera with a wide-angle lens is installed inside a jack-o-lantern. Oct. 31, 1962. (William LaForce/Baltimore Sun)
- Leslie Blatt and her toothy friend are all ready for Halloween as they sit amid tiers of potential jack-o-lanterns. Oct. 30, 1964. (Baltimore Sun)
- The inside of a Halloween pumpkin carved by his father intrigues two-year-old Davis Cox. Oct. 30, 1965. (Baltimore Sun)
- Edward Witles has built a 10-foot gorilla on his lawn to advertise that he will give away prizes to trick-or-treaters. Here, Mrs. Witles inspects the goodwill gorilla that took two days to build. Oct. 21, 1965. (William H. Mortimer/Baltimore Sun)
- Whoever was inside wouldn’t answer. Halloween parade. Oct. 30, 1965. (Baltimore Sun)
- A black cat, poised on a pile of pumpkins at Sewell’s orchard near Columbia, heralds the arrival of Halloween. Oct. 30, 1971. (Joseph A. DiPaola/Baltimore Sun)
- Two kids react to a Halloween display. Oct. 31, 1973. (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)
- Looking a little less ferocious than King Kong, Ed Morrison as a gorilla pirouettes at left, while the grim reaper, Joe McDaniels and Wolfman Gordy Willie adopt the appropriate scary expressions as they go about town touting a haunted house open in the evening through Halloween night at Merritt Point Park, Dundalk. Oct. 16, 1974. (Weyman Swagger/Baltimore Sun)
- Halloween scene from Lansdowne, Md. Oct. 29, 1975. (Joseph DiPaolo/Baltimore Sun)
- At the Baltimore County Library’s Woodlawn branch, pre-school children celebrate pre-Halloween festivities in costume. Oct. 26, 1978. (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)
- The Fiend. A haunted house in Glen Burnie. Oct. 26, 1979. (Baltimore Sun)
- Pirates return to haunt Birds. Oct. 26, 1979. (Irving H. Phillips, Jr./Baltimore Sun)
- Here lies… Oct. 28, 1980. (Joseph A. DiPaola/Baltimore Sun)
- Halloween scene in 1981. (Weyman Swagger/Baltimore Sun)
- E.T. gives out candy at a pumpkin party. Oct. 30, 1982. (Lloyd Pearson/Baltimore Sun)
- Proudly displaying her clown face painted by Shirley Basfield Dunlap at Morgan State University. Oct. 31, 1985. (Robert K. Hamilton/Baltimore Sun)
- School kids dress up in costume. Oct. 22, 1986. (Walter McCardell/Baltimore Sun)
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Halloween wore a different face Revels: In the 1930s, crowds jammed Baltimore Street for the annual costume parade. Clowns, cowboys and Colonial Dames had one thing in common: no masks. The police commissioner had ruled them out.
By Fred Rasmussen | Baltimore Sun
October 27, 1996
The observance of Halloween in the Baltimore of the 1930s was a different affair from today’s.
Police issued guidelines detailing how the holiday would be celebrated. Crowds of trick or treaters jammed Baltimore Street for the annual Halloween-night costume parade. And the week preceding Halloween was always punctuated by acts of mischief, duly reported by The Sun.
In 1930 City Police Commissioner Charles D. Gaither, apparently fearing that criminals in disguise would mix with the crowds, included this warning among the year’s guidelines:
“No. 1 on the list of rules and regulations is no masks. This applies to clowns, harlequins, columbines, cowboys, Colonial Dames, Mexicans, spooks, skeletons, soldiers, sailors and marines. It applies, in fact, to anyone and everyone.”
The Sun added, “The Police taboos will apply to any Halloween celebrant who appears in public with a bean-shooter, any Halloween celebrant who appears in public with a six-shooter, any Halloween celebrant who throws flour or confetti or bricks.”
The arrival of Doorbell Night, Chalk Night, Mischief Night and Moving Night — all during the week before Halloween — meant that homeowners had better be prepared for some high jinks and other acts of deviltry.
The Sun observed wryly: “If dwellers in suburbia do not experience again their usual Halloween troubles, then the Great American Boy is not the healthy specimen that he used to be.”
City police were not so forgiving and warned violators that, if they were caught destroying or defacing property, they would most likely “haunt” the city jail for 30 days.
Downtown residents complained vociferously that year about their milk bottles being removed and smashed.
“Miscreants balance milk bottles on door knobs and then ring the bell,” said The Sun. “When the door is opened the bottle drops and is shattered.”