Robert S. Garrett (May 24, 1875[1] – April 25, 1961) was an American athlete, as well as investment banker and philanthropist in Baltimore, Maryland and financier of several important archeological excavations.

His grandfather John Work Garrett (1820–1884) had led the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (the first passenger railroad line established in America, 1827–1828), for nearly three decades (1858–1884), including supporting the Union during the American Civil War (1861–1865), making it by the middle of the 19th century as one of the most important lines in the nation, and also became an important philanthropist in Baltimore.

When he decided to compete in the famous first modern Olympic games (First Olympiad) being revived and held in Athens, Greece, in 1896, Professor William Milligan Sloane suggested that Garrett also try the discus.

They were overwhelmed by the superior skill and daring of the Americans, to whom they ascribed a supernatural invincibility enabling them to dispense with training and to win at games which they had never before seen.

"[citation needed] According to James Connolly, the winning Americans in five of the track and field events had not had a single day of outdoor practice since the previous fall.

His bronze medal in the shot put was unusual, as he refused to compete in the final because it was on a Sunday, his religious day of rest.

Garrett amassed a collection of historical volumes of Western and non-Western manuscripts, fragments, and scrolls, originating from Europe, the Near East, Africa, Asia and Mesoamerica, ca.

After his father's sudden death in 1888, Robert spent the following two and a half years traveling extensively with his mother and two brothers, Horatio and John, in Europe and the Near East.

Garrett was for many years an enthusiastic alumnus and served as trustee of Princeton University and also on the governing board of the Baltimore Museum of Art, founded in 1914 by his aunt Mary Elizabeth Garrett, (1857-1915), and working in the relocation and construction project of their new museum building designed by famous American architect John Russell Pope (1874-1937), on Art Museum Drive, off of North Charles Street, and adjacent to the also newly located Homewood Campus of The Johns Hopkins University.

He was also largely responsible for bringing the new Boy Scouts of America youth organization to Baltimore in 1910, shortly after its national establishment and imported from Great Britain with founder.

In the Baltimore mayoral campaign of 1947, both the Republican and Democratic nominees promised that, if elected, they would name Garrett as chairman of the city's Department of Recreation and Parks.

In the realm of civil rights for African-Americans, Garrett was a staunch conservative and opposed any racial integration of the city's public facilities in its parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, tennis courts and recreation centers.

As noted above, the Garrett Park recreation area in Baltimore City's Brooklyn neighborhood, on East Patapsco Avenue, between Second and Third Streets, was donated and named for him.