Lee Street Baptist Church, Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church, and St. Mary's Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church. Federal Hill is served by Federal Hill Elementary School, Thomas Johnson Elementary Middle School, Francis Scott Key Elementary and Middle School, and Digital Harbor High School. The public library is the Light Street Branch of the famous Enoch Pratt Free Library. Federal Hill is also home to many popular retail, dining, and entertainment options all within walking distance for most neighborhood residents. With most daily needs covered by businesses within a few blocks of the community center, Federal Hill has emerged as a premier neighborhood for the increasing number of people choosing an urban lifestyle. Transportation Federal Hill is located conveniently to Interstate 95, Interstate 395, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and Charles and Light Streets, which provide the major north-south surface route through Baltimore. The western portions of the neighborhood are within walking distance of the Hamburg Street and Camden Yards stops on the Baltimore Light Rail. The Charm City Circulator is a free bus system that services central Baltimore and consists of four separate routes. Two of the routes, the Purple Route which runs from Penn Station to Federal Hill, and the Banner Route which runs from the Inner Harbor to Fort McHenry, service Federal Hill. Early history Early in the colonial period the area known as Federal Hill was the site of a paint pigment mining operation. The hill has several tunnels beneath its present parklike setting. On occasion a part of a tunnel will collapse causing the need to infill the area if the depression is near the surface of the edges of the hill. From early in the history of the city, the hill was a public gathering place and civic treasure. The hill itself was given the name in 1789 after serving as the location for the end of a parade and a following civic celebration of the ratification of the new "Federal" constitution of the United States of America. For much of the early history of Baltimore, the hill was known as Signal Hill because it was home to a maritime observatory serving the merchant and shipping interests of the city by observing the sailing of ships up the Patapsco River and signalling their impending arrival to downtown businesspeople. On the night of May 12, following the Baltimore riot of 1861, the hill was occupied in