Here at 103–107 Exchange Street, in the Old Port of Portland, Maine, you face the Printers' Exchange Block. The building you face was designed and built in 1866 by Charles Q. Clapp and erected that same year by Horatio N. Jose in the wake of Portland’s great 1866 fire. It wraps around the block that stands at the intersections of Exchange, Federal and Market Streets, and over time has also carried the addresses 174–178 Federal Street and 114–116 Market Street.
Businessmen and printers reshaped this corner: Deacon Brown Thurston moved his business here after his previous one, at the corner of Fore Street and Union Street, burned. Originally known as the Printers' Exchange, it was home to the Eastern Argus and the Portland Daily Press, among other newspapers. Later chapters of its life are visible in records: in 1924 the building was owned by Clinton W. Davis Agent, and by 1965 it housed the Dow and Pinkham Insurance Company.
Stand close enough to see the scale and imagine the deliveries and the bustle tied to the newspapers that once made this block hum. Notice the sweep of Exchange, Federal and Market Streets meeting right at this corner.