George Catlin’s 1825 view of Buffalo Harbor

Courtesy of Mr. Henry Baxter

Dating to the year the Erie Canal was completed, this view from The Terrace shows an odd-shaped building (behind the horse and buggy) at the intersection of Main and Commercial Streets where Spaulding’s Exchange would be located. A canal boat floats in the Commercial Slip, the canal basin between the Erie Canal and Buffalo River. The canal would soon transform the indolent scene pictured here into the hurly-burly shown in “Spaulding’s Exchange.”