United States · Utah · Salt Lake City
Exchange Place Historic District, Salt Lake City — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Carved buffalo heads look over Exchange Place Historic District, the block of Salt Lake City that Utah's mining fortunes built between 1903 and 1917.
About Exchange Place Historic District
Where to stay in Exchange Place Historic District
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Exchange Place Historic District keeps offices and courtrooms rather than front desks, so the beds sit on the surrounding blocks of Downtown Salt Lake City. Main Street carries the trains. The Courthouse light-rail stop stands in its median a block south, at 450 South Main Street, and the downtown grid follows from there.
Two of the district's own buildings went up as lodging, the five-storey New Grand Hotel of 1910 and the Hotel Plandome, three brick storeys over shopfronts on 400 South. Stay close by if you want Utah's first skyscrapers on the morning walk and the Frank E. Moss United States Courthouse two minutes from the door.
About Exchange Place Historic District
What are the main landmarks in Exchange Place Historic District?
Exchange Place Historic District packs ten contributing buildings into one short street and the Main Street frontage beside it. The Boston Building and the Newhouse Building rise twelve storeys as twin towers at the west entrance, Utah's first skyscrapers, drawn by the Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb. Four freestanding Ionic columns and a Greek pediment front the Salt Lake Stock and Mining Exchange Building.
Terra cotta does the rest. Polychrome panels sheathe the Commercial Club Building, and the city's oldest terra cotta skin belongs to the Felt Building. The Frank E. Moss United States Courthouse closes the view west.
What is the history of Exchange Place Historic District?
Exchange Place Historic District began as a commercial rivalry. Samuel Newhouse made a mining fortune in Colorado and in Utah's Highland Boy claim, moved to Salt Lake City in 1896, and set about pulling the business centre four blocks south of South Temple, away from the Mormon commercial houses around Temple Square. He paid for the Boston Building and the Newhouse Building, gave the ground under the Salt Lake Stock and Mining Exchange Building, and donated the site of the Commercial Club Building.
Bankruptcy stopped him in 1915. The Newhouse Realty Building of 1917 closed the run.
Where is Exchange Place Historic District?
Exchange Place Historic District covers a block of downtown Salt Lake City between 300 South and 400 South, straddling Main Street and running east to State Street.
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Updated September 2026