Strawbery Banke Presents
HISTORIC PORTSMOUTH #223

To get your bearings, focus on the railing and stairway at the right of this photo. They are among the only surviving features in this view at the corner of State and Marcy streets. Prescott Park has replaced the Walker Coal Company at the left. (Continued below)

HISTORIC PHOTOS of the Greater Portsmouth Area appear here week

The notorious Gloucester House, demolished prior to 1923, stands to the right. Once a respectable hotel and boarding house, it will forever be remembered as a bordello in the city’s Red Light District that closed in 1912. Madam Mary Baker, legend says, had diamonds embedded in her teeth in an era long before "bling". Furniture storeowner Donald Margeson, a founder of Strawbery Banke, moved his house to this location in the 1930s. 

READ ALSO:  Red Lights on Water Street 

 This image from the book STRAWBERY BANKE:
A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making
by J. Dennis Robinson
(c) Strawbery Banke Museum Collection