CAMBRIDGE – The Heart of Chesapeake Country Heritage Area has released a second audio tour focused on Downtown Cambridge for the Visit Dorchester cell phone app. The new tour is part of the suite of audio tours that the heritage area has created to showcase the unique history and culture of Dorchester County during its 350th anniversary.

The Visit Dorchester Audio Tour Guide is free and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store for android devices and the App Store for iPhones. In addition to describing significant historical highlights, narrators note unique architectural details and share their own personal reflections and first-hand memories of events and activities related to the featured sites, said Julie Gilberto-Brady, manager of the Heart of Chesapeake Country Heritage Area.

Downtown Cambridge Tour
“The Downtown Cambridge Tour gives you historical details about events like the devastating fires that destroyed so many buildings in the late 1800s and early 1900s,” Ms. Gilberto-Brady said. “The narrators also point out significant architectural and design details about the buildings that you might not notice on your own.

“Perhaps, the most interesting and unique aspects of our tours are the authentic, personal experiences that our narrators share when they describe their connections to the sites. We have a 100-year-old great-grandmother who grew up down the street from the former Phillips Hardware store and remembers being captivated by the toy display there at Christmas.

“We have one of the owners of RAR Brewing, who shares his delight at being able to buy the old pool hall where he hung out as a teenager and convert it to a successful business, complete with the very same, working hot dog maker from his childhood. And we have a local African-American historian who recalls spending Saturdays watching cartoons in the segregated balcony at the former Arcade Theater.”

Pine Street Tour
The Pine Street Tour, which was released in April, focuses on African-American history and heritage in Cambridge. Narrators also share personal experiences on this tour. The Long Wharf narrator provides historical background, and then he describes how he has traced his family history and that his ancestors were unloaded from slave ships at this spot. His poignant reflection includes how he tries to see the landscape through their eyes and their perspective.

The tour proceeds up historic High Street with a story from the last known surviving African-American skipjack captain and stops at a house along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway and the Dorchester County Courthouse. As visitors continue to Pine Street, narrators share firsthand memories of the neighborhood’s heyday, when the area had so much energy it was nicknamed “Little New York.”

As travelers walk in the footsteps of Gloria Richardson, they will hear compelling descriptions of the turbulent 1960s when Pine Street thrust Cambridge before a worldwide audience, and it emerged as one of the most important battlegrounds in the Civil Rights movement.

Chesapeake Mural Trail
The Chesapeake Mural Trail Tour, which is a driving tour, will be released in June. This guide will take travelers through Cambridge, Vienna and East New Market to view Michael Rosato’s murals, highlighting bits of Dorchester’s culture and history along the Michener Chesapeake Country Scenic Byway.

Mr. Rosato, a nationally known muralist who lives in Dorchester County, narrates each stop, sharing details about the artistic techniques he used, the history that is illustrated and the passages from James Michener’s Chesapeake that inspired each particular scene. Mr. Rosato’s latest mural of Harriett Tubman, which is in progress now on the Harriet Tubman Museum on Race Street, also is on the tour.

Download the Tours
The Downtown Cambridge Tour includes 13 stops, and the Pine Street Tour includes nine stops. The Chesapeake Mural Trail will have eight stops. They are all available on the same Visit Dorchester app.
Download the free Visit Dorchester app from the:
Google Play Store, http://bit.ly/visitdorchester-android-app
Apple App Store, http://bit.ly/visitdorchester-iphone-app