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C H A P T E R
Back to the Future
The Rebirth of the Local Stock Exchange
Can the solution to local investing be found in our past?
It’s hard to imagine now, but less than a century ago, the
United States was teeming with stock exchanges. Starting in the 1790s,
when groups of brokers gathered at the Merchants Coffee House
in Philadelphia and under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, the
young nation began piecing together a fi nancial market system
that would fuel its breathtaking growth. For several decades, the
Philadelphia and New York exchanges served as national markets.
As the country grew, so did the number of exchanges. Boston,
Baltimore, Milwaukee, and San Francisco established stock
exchanges starting in the 1830s. But it wasn’t until after the Civil
War that regional exchanges really took off. From 1862 to 1930,
as America industrialized and expanded westward, at least 24
exchanges debuted, from Wheeling, West Virginia, to Salt Lake City
and Honolulu. 1
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