USS Baltimore, a 4413-ton protected cruiser built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was commissioned in January 1890. After serving as flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron, in August 1890 she carried the body of the noted engineer John Ericsson to his native Sweden for burial. Baltimore subsequently cruised in European and Mediterranean waters and in April 1891 joined the South Pacific Station. For the next year and a half she operated off the west coasts of South and North America. Service in the Western Atlantic followed in late 1892 and the first part of 1893. Baltimore then steamed eastward, transiting the Suez Canal to serve from December 1893 to December 1895 as Asiatic Station flagship. She was laid up at Mare Island, California, in mid-February 1896 but recommissioned in October 1897 for several months's duty in the Hawaiian Islands.

In April 1898 Baltimore arrived at Hong Kong to begin an eventful second deployment in Asiatic waters. On 1 May, she took part in the Battle of Manila Bay , which destroyed Spanish naval power in the Philippines. She was present in Manila Bay the rest of the Spanish-American War and participated in the Philippines operations that followed. The cruiser returned to the U.S. in mid-1900, again via Suez, and was out of commission at New York from then until May 1903. With her appearance altered by the elimination of her "military" fighting mast tops and other modifications, Baltimore operated along the U.S. East Coast and in the Caribbean for the rest of 1903 and served with the European Squadron between May and August 1904. Later in that year she began a third Far Eastern tour, which lasted until 1907. Following nearly four years in reserve at New York, Baltimore was the receiving ship at the Charleston Navy Yard, South Carolina, during 1911 and 1912.

In 1913-1915 Baltimore was converted to a minelayer, recommissioning for Atlantic Fleet mine warfare operations and training service in March 1915. In March 1918 she went to British waters to take an active role in the fight against the German U-boat threat. From then until late September 1918 Baltimore helped lay extensive anti-submarine minefields between Scotland and Ireland, and in the North Sea. With these tasks completed, she steamed back to the U.S. a month before the World War I fighting ended.

Baltimore became part of the Pacific Fleet in September 1919. In July 1920, as the Navy implemented its system of ship hull numbers, she was designated CM-1. The old minelayer went to Pearl Harbor early in 1921 and decommissioned there in September 1922. For nearly two decades, Baltimore was inactive at that base, serving for part of the time as a storage hulk. She was present, though in derelict condition, during the devastating Japanese air raid that opened the Pacific War on 7 December 1941. Sold in February 1942, the partially-scrapped ship was finally scuttled at sea on 22 September 1944.