This engraving depicts the south side of Front Street (Main Avenue) in the early 1880s. The viewer is looking from the Headquarters Hotel. The Northern Pacific Railroad tracks would be just below the bottom of the picture. Most of the picture depicts the NP Depot Park. The bandstand is on the east end (left side) of the park. Toward the center left, one can see the intersection of Broadway and Front Street. The three-story building just to the left of the bandstand is A. L. Moody's. The engraving identifies the Moody's building as the W.A. Yerxa store. To the left (east) of Moody's is the United Block. The building is identified in the engraving as the Stevens, Quincy, & Co. building.

Moving west (right), we come to the First National Bank on the corner of Front Street and Sixth Street. The building to the west of the bank is identified as the Grant & Polk building. The three-story building in the upper left center is identified as the O.J. DeLendrecie building. This is likely his second building as the first was further east and the third was on the corner of Front Street and Seventh Street. The Park Hotel is identified as the third building west of DeLendrecie's.

The large, three-story building in the upper right is the Sherman House hotel on the southwest corner of Front Street and Seventh Street.