Hallowell Historic District

The Hallowell Historic District covers the old commercial heart of the city along Water Street and Second Street, a compact grid of brick storefronts and Federal-style houses that looks much as it did in the 1820s. The district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and preserves one of the most complete early 19th-century commercial streetscapes in Maine.

Today the buildings house antique shops, bookstores, galleries, and restaurants — the same mixture of independent businesses the town has always supported. Walking the six blocks of Water Street takes perhaps 20 minutes at a stroll, more if you stop to look in the shop windows. The Victorian houses climbing the hill above Water Street on Second and Third Streets are equally fine.

things to do sight architecture
A story
Hallowell was one of Maine's most prosperous river towns in the late 18th and early 19th century, growing wealthy on the granite trade — its quarries supplied stone for buildings from Boston to Washington. When the railroads bypassed the town, the prosperity stopped, and the result was a remarkably intact streetscape that never had a reason to tear itself down and build something new.