Main Street, 1875

When Searsport was incorporated in 1845, Main Street consisted of two rows of shops and homes. The first brick building, Leach Block, built in 1834, stood at center right, and to its left was the tall three-story structure built in 1849 known as the Smart Block. People on the street appeared to be watching a horse and buggy round the corner, perhaps too sharply, with a wheel collapsing, evoking the wooden sidewalk, the dust or mud of the gravel road, and the pungent odor of horses in 1875.

Searsport, Maine · United States