This sepia-toned photograph captured the male drivers, the women shoppers, and mischievous boys of an active Front Street in the early 1890s, apparently before the fires that began in 1893 rewrote the face of the downtown.

The names on the signs: Anderson's Drug Store; Dr. Fremont L. Hogan; Percy & Mitchell's furniture store (Frank H. Percy and G. Fred Mitchell); Davis Hatch's big boot for his shoe store; J.H. & D.M. Humphreys, Insurance; Nathaniel M. Clapp & Zachariah C. Norton's stove shop; Thomas P. I. Magoun's music store; Bath Savings Institution; Henry M. Ragon's dentistry office; the Henry Swanton-John C. Jameson chandlery; Charles E. Hammond, a photographer and crayon artist; Francis F. Powers' musical-instrument store; a billiards parlor; and the newspaper office of the "Bath Times" can be found in the 1892 Bath city directory.

The Hyde Block, containing Bath Savings, Ragon's dentistry office and the chandlery in this photo, was built in 1871; a mansard roof was added by Bath Savings Institution in 1910 when the Swanton-Jameson Chandlery vacated the building.