Its establishment began on January 21, 1882, when the longtime local hardware merchant, banking, and steamship company executive and philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808-1896) offered a gift of a central library, four branch libraries (with two additional shortly afterward), and a financial endowment of more than $1 million to Mayor William Pinkney Whyte and the Baltimore City Council.

His intention was to establish a public circulating library that (as he described it) "shall be for all, rich and poor without distinction of race or color, who, when properly accredited, can take out the books if they will handle them carefully and return them."

The library's location, at the intersection of Pennsylvania and West North Avenues in the northwest center city Sandtown-Winchester community, found itself at the center of the protests drawing nationwide and international attention, giving community members a safe place during the troubled times.

[citation needed] In September 2024, Chad Helton was named as the library system's new president and CEO.

[11][12] The merchant and financier Enoch Pratt, in a letter to the Baltimore City Council on January 21, 1882, offered to donate and construct a free public library with several neighborhood branches open to all the citizens of the City of Baltimore (and its surrounding environs).

After some debate and discussion which was also widely reported in the local newspapers,[13][14] the mayor and council accepted the gift and the terms of its conditions later that year, which were subsequently approved by the citizens in a referendum held during an election that October, 1882.

[18] Because of closings, relocations, and reallocation of space, the Pratt system now has twenty-two active branches.

The structure's elaborate Romanesque Revival architecture became a target of criticism from journalists during final years of existence: H. L. Mencken of The Baltimore Sun, a frequent and prolific user of the branch at Calhoun and Hollins Streets, judged it "so infernally hideous that it ought to be pulled down by the common hangman".

[19] By the late 1920s, Old Central could no longer hold the library's continually expanding collection, even though an annex had been added at the rear.

The Central Pratt Library's staff, services and 400,000 volumes were relocated to temporary quarters at the old Rouse-Hempstone Building at West Redwood Street and Hopkins Place (now the site of the Royal Farms Arena for a two-year stay during 1931–1933.

At this temporary location, the Central Pratt was able to reorganize and plan for its future arrangements of departments and try out its soon-to-be famous "department store windows" displays[1] It was razed in 1931, along with several townhouses facing Cathedral Street, including a significant one formerly owned by Robert Goodloe Harper.