Kelso Home for Girls

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Kelso Home for Girls (campus and building) / currently Towson YMCA

• Relocation of the Kelso Home for Girls to Towson^[1] took place September 27, 1925. Originally, it was thought that the campus would accommodate both boys and girls, but with the advent of donated property in Eldersburg Maryland, the boys were located to the Strawbridge Home for Boys.^[2][3] The site was purchased for $300,000 from the heirs of Thomas W. Offutt who had acquired it from the Amos Matthews / Woodbine^[4] estate, to erect the home on its 17-acre natural campus at 600 West Chesapeake avenue, Towson.
• The design of the Towson facility is credited to Otto Eugene Adams, a Maryland architect. The original building, a brick Colonial structure, contained accommodations for 80 girls, assembly hall, infirmary, play rooms, and other features. Several outbuildings were to have been added at a later date, but were never completed. Thomas Hicks & Son Inc., were contracted to erect the building, the original cost being estimated at $100,000. ^[5]
• A dedication of the completed home, presided over by Methodist Episcopal Bishop William McDowell, occurred in 1925. Several prominent Methodists and other friends of the institution attended the dedicatory services - including: Revs. Dr. F.R. Bayley, Dr. J.B. Gillum, and Dr. E.T. Mowbray., district superintendents of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church: Louis Moller, president of the board of trustees of the home: Walter Kirwan, secretary to the board of managers for the home: and Mrs. Ella J. Kilcourse, superintendent of the home. Milton W. Gatch, lay organizer of fundraising for the new home, officially presented it to the Bishop. Accounts from the attending guests describe the home's interior appointments as having wide hallways, a bright living room with cretonne curtains, that opened into a sunparlor; the home's dining room was furnished with windsor chairs and tables. The smaller children were grouped into dormitories, having ivory colored woodwork and beds, while the the older girls were to be settled into single and double rooms that had mahogany-colored furniture.^[6]
• In 1958, under the direction of W. Gibbs McKenney, president of the board of the home, the campus and structure were sold to the Baltimore YMCA organization for use as the Towson Family YMCA branch. ^[7]
• The Kelso Home organization ^[8][9] had 85 years of service behind it at the time (1958) the charity moved from Towson. The girls orphanage was named for it's original benefactor: Thomas Kelso, who began the charity at a location in downtown Baltimore. ^[10]

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