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Maryland Historical Society
Library of Maryland History
201 W. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-685-3750
Fax: 410-385-2105
E-mail: library@mdhs.org

Baltimore Architecture:
Then and Now

Merchants' Exchange, 40 South Gay Street
image info

Architects:
1820  Benjamin H. Latrobe
1901  Hornblower and Marshall

Ca. 1815 an alliance of Baltimore businessmen purchased the land near the harbor bounded by Tripolet's Alley and Gay, Water and Lombard Streets with a view to joining the trend in major American  ports to construct merchants' exchanges - large buildings in which retailers and major wholesalers both socialized and did business in the course of their working days. The organizers of the Baltimore exchange hired Benjamin Henry Latrobe, one of America's first professional architects, to design it for them and, while engaged in the construction of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption (which still stands on Cathedral Street), he undertook the great domed structure that was intended to become the city's commercial nerve center. 

Latrobe built an H-shaped structure, all four arms of which were intended to rise three stories above a high basement, although the southwest arm never rose more than one story above its base. One arm was rented by the second Bank of the United States as its Baltimore offices, another by the U.S. Treasury as the Baltimore Custom House, and a third was the Exchange Hotel. The dome was intended to cover the merchants' exchange itself, and the other wing and the basements housed offices of exchange members.

The exchange opened in 1820, hard on the heels of the bankruptcy of some of its most enthusiastic supporters in the Panic of 1819, and was never a commercial success. As time went by, more and more of its space was taken over by government agencies, including the mayor and city council of Baltimore, until in 1856 its private owners gave up after several bankruptcies and sold the whole structure to the United States. It was the site of the Custom House from 1820 through 1901, of the Baltimore post office from 1856 through 1890, and of other Federal offices such as the Sub-Treasury and the Bureau of Internal Revenue during the same period. Finally, however, the United States decided to demolish and replace it with a new structure on the same site.

Latrobe's great structure came down in 1901, and the new building, designed by Hornblower and Marshall, was still under construction when the 1904 Baltimore Fire swept across its site, delaying its completion until 1907. The current building, which is taller but occupies a smaller footprint than its predecessor, has housed various Federal agencies ever since that time.

Image information
left: Baltimore, Markets, Merchant's Exchange, ca. 1905 (PP71.35, Henry Rinn Photograph Collection, MdHS).
right: Photo by John Orrick, 2000.

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Baltimore Architecture - Homepage
 

Site Contents
1  Masonic Building
2  Enoch Pratt House
3  Graham-Hughes House
4  American Brewery
5  Belvedere Hotel
6  Camden Station
7  Alex Brown Building
8  Williams-Small House
9  Timanus Mill
10  The Pembroke Apartments
11  Merchant's Exchange
12  Old B and O Building
13  Denny & Mitchell Building
14  Guardian Trust Building
15  Old Post Office Building
16  St. Joseph's R.C. Church & Washington Firehouse
17  The Maryland Casualty Building
18  Church of the Redeemer Building
19  The Popplein Family Mansion/Marlborough Apartments
20  Samuel Hoffman, later the Dr. William Osler Mansion
21  Cohen Brothers, later the Dr. Robinson Building
22  Saint Peter's Catholic Church 1770
23  The Baltimore Humane Impartial Society Building
24  Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad Calvert Station
25  The Richmond Market Building Site
26  Dr. Charles Howard's Site and Mount Vernon Place M.E. Church
27  The Stephen Broadbent Mansion "The Glen Mary"