
Trolley Days

A Tour of the H&F Terminal Renovation by Reuben Moss On April 1st, I was invited to tour the construction site at 200 East Patrick Street. The dominant structure on the property is locally referred to as “the old Frederick News - Post building,” however those familiar with its history know it as the H&F Frederick Terminal. The invitation came following a discussion with Mr. Myron Randall, Jr., the former President and Publisher of the newspaper that once operated out of the structure. My host during the tour was his son, William, the paper’s former CEO. The Randalls had continued their family's operation of the paper which spanned over a century, and eventually moved the operation to a larger building, before making the difficult decision to sell the business to another family in 2017. The “old” building, however, remains with the family. Over the previous months, Will Randall has been overseeing the careful removal of the “new”, stripping away the layers of addition and modernization that had hidden the railway terminal underneath. For the first time in decades, unique architectural designs, original paint, and evidence of older structural elements have been exposed, telling the story of what a grand place Frederick’s “trolley station” had once been. My occasional online conversations with Myron Randall began in 2023, after I had shared a summary of the property history in the comments of a post in a mutual Facebook group. During our discussions I had provided additional images to Mr. Randall, and we discussed my family ties to the newspaper through my late uncle Bill Pritchard. When he messaged me about the progress at the end of March, I was eager to learn what had been found, and was soon put in touch with Will to schedule a tour of the site. 3 An early photo of the terminal building at the southeast corner of Carroll and East Patrick Streets. Courtesy of The B&O Railroad Museum. The