First International Conference of American States And so, as Secretary of State, Blaine sent invitations to all the nations of the Hemisphere to come to Washington in November 1881 with the principal goal of considering and discussing methods to prevent war between the nations of the Hemisphere. But destiny intervened: President Garfield was assassinated on 19 September 1881 and the new President Chester A. Arthur, who was no friend of Blaine's, quickly removed him from the State Department. Shortly afterward, the Conference invitations were withdrawn on the grounds that the unsettled situation at home and abroad would make such an event impossible. Now a private citizen,
President Street Station in 1881, demolished the President Street's eastern train shed after heavy snow damage in 1913 and erected a new, shorter shed, built with wooden roof trusses. The President Street Station was later used as a warehouse. The train shed was destroyed by fire, leaving only the present head house by 1970, when it was abandoned. In 1979, the derelict building was acquired by the City of Baltimore, which planned to demolish it to clear the way for a proposed southern extension of the Jones Falls Expressway (Interstate 83) to connect in an interchange near the harbor with the east -