Portland, Maine Middle Street 1846 Postcard

Middle Street, looking east in 1846 by George M Howe. The Merchant's Exchange - with the Pantheon dome - was between Court (now Exchange) and Lime (now Market) Streets, built 1835-39 at a cost of $100,000 by the city of Portland in hopes of luring the Legislature back from the wilderness town of Augusta. Built of syenite granite from Kennebunk, it was 3 stories with a very low hipped roof, 136 feet long, 72 feet wide, and had a 63 feet diameter dome that was 25 feet high. It had a 26 feet high monolithic octastyle portico above the ground floor. Richard Bond was the architect. In 1849, the Merchant's Exchange was sold by the City of Portland to the United States for $149,000 for use as a Custom House, Post Office and US Court House. It was destroyed by fire January 8, 1854, and replaced at the same location. It is now the location of Post Office Park. The church in the distance was the Second Parish Meetinghouse on the corner with Deer Street, built in 1788; the first pastor was Elijah Kellogg, and the city's first church organ was installed here in 1798. The church burned in the 1866 fire, and a new one was built on the corner of Congress and Pearl Streets.