In 1831, a group of prominent Philadelphians led by Stephen Girard, the nation's wealthiest man at the time, constructed a building for trade, commerce, and post to preside.

[6] The Greek Revival movement became particularly attractive for American architects in the late eighteenth century on account of the rising popularity of ancient Greece's democratic principles and the strong desire to recast the nation's image and further distance it from Great Britain.

Greek Revival architecture began to gain favor in the United States when Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Henry Latrobe to design a number of prominent buildings in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia for the Federal government.

Strickland's use of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates as inspiration for the building's lantern tower drew the local press to write in a newspaper in 1831 that "Philadelphia is truly the Athens of America.

"[6] Strickland later went on to be the architect of the Second Bank of the United States and the steeple on the Independence Hall Tower, though the Merchants' Exchange Building is still widely recognized as his greatest masterpiece because of its unique asymmetrical shape.