The Savannah Cotton Exchange, located on the north side of Bay Street near the historic riverfront and Factors’ Walk, was built in 1886. It was the first commission in Savannah undertaken by architect William Gibbons Preston, who went on to design many of the city’s notable homes and buildings.
The Cotton Exchange was first established in Savannah in 1872, as a place for Savannah’s many cotton factors and merchants to meet to decide the price of the cotton they traded. The construction of its permanent headquarters came a little over a decade later.
The red brick Romanesque revival style building was deliberately designed to stand out from the buildings around it, a characteristic intended to reflect the prominence of the cotton industry in Savannah’s history.
Savannah’s port was a center of cotton trading and export in the South, the product of slaves’ labor – after the war, the labor of the region’s often impoverished sharecroppers – shipped to ports in the North, Britain, and markets over the world.
The terracotta lion in front of the Exchange was installed in 1889. The area around it was later developed as a small park, called Cotton Exchange Circle, a personal project of Chairman of the Park and Tree Commission (and prominent cotton merchant) Philip D. Daffin.
Daffin had samples of the different varieties of cotton grown in the region planted in his Circle, which he delighted in showing to visitors.
The Cotton Exchange finally closed business in 1952, the building subsequently occupied by the Savannah Chamber of Commerce. In 1974, the Freemasons purchased the remaining lease on the Cotton Exchange building. Solomon’s Lodge, which now uses the building, claims to be the oldest continually operating lodge in the United States.
A drunk-driver destroyed the terracotta lion and parts of the building itself in 2008. A cement replica of the lion was installed in 2010.