Congress Street is the main street

Main Street

Main Street is the metonym for a generic street name of the primary retail street of a village, town, or small city in many parts of the world...

 in Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...

. Congress stretches from Portland's southwestern border with South Portland

South Portland, Maine

South Portland is a city in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, and is the fourth-largest city in the state. Founded in 1895, as of the 2010 census, the city population was 25,002. Known for its working waterfront, South Portland is situated on Portland Harbor and overlooks the skyline of...

 through a number of neighborhoods before ending overlooking the Eastern Promenade

Eastern Promenade

The Eastern Promenade is an historic promenade, public park and recreation area in Portland, Maine. Construction of the Promenade began in 1836 and continued periodically until 1934. The park was designed by the Olmstead Brothers design firm and experienced its greatest expansion from the 1880s...

 on Munjoy Hill

Munjoy Hill

Munjoy Hill is an historically Irish-American neighborhood and prominent geographical feature of Portland, Maine. It is located east of downtown, and south of East Deering, the neighborhood it is connected to by Tukey's Bridge.-Geography:...

. In March 2009, the Portland City Council designated much of the inner portion of Congress Street an historic district

Historic district

A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries, historic districts receive legal protection from development....

.

History

When what is now Portland was founded by British colonialists in the early 18th century, the population settled primarily on the waterfront near what is now India St. Congress was laid out and originally known as Back Street and later Queen Street. The first prominent structures on the street were the First Parish Meeting House

First Parish Church (Portland, Maine)

First Parish Church is an historic church at 425 Congress Street in Portland, Maine.It was built in 1825 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.-External links:* The Forecaster, November 30, 2010...

, built in 1740 and replaced to the present structure in the 1820s as well as the hay scales in Market Square, later known as Monument Square

Monument Square (Portland, Maine)

Monument Square is a town square in Portland, Maine. The Time and Temperature Building and the Portland Public Library are on Congress Street across from the square, while One Monument Square and One City Center are located on the square....

. From the early settlement of Portland until the Revolutionary War period, Back Street was considered the far edge of the town. It took the name of Congress Street beginning in 1823.

A study in 2011 sought to change a number of features on the street, including decreasing the number of stoplights and ending left hand turns off of the street. Greater Portland planners also called the street the most congested artery in the region.