Liverpool Cotton Exchange Building

The Liverpool Cotton Exchange building holds a copper dome that anchors the intersection of Old Hall Street and Tithebarn Street. This site served as the global nerve center for the raw cotton trade throughout the nineteenth century. Traders here set the world price for cotton before it even arrived at the docks. During the peak of the industry, a merchant named James Wrigley famously signaled orders by frantic hand gestures from the floor, a chaotic method that preceded the telegraph systems that eventually replaced human runners.