At the turn of the last century, Bangoreans worried about the declining traffic in their once fabled harbor. The “maze of masts” was no more. The rafts of logs and lumber that once floated down …
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At around 11 p.m. on Dec. 31 a century ago, the calls began coming into Bangor’s telephone exchange. ”What time is it?” revelers shouted over the crackling line on that night long ago.
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Bangoreans danced until the wee hours as winter approached a century ago. November marked the beginning of the Queen City’s dancing season, and from then until Lent hardly a week passed that did …
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Gold fever afflicted Mainers a century ago. Farmers scoured their land for signs of riches, while prospectors searched remote townships for precious metals including copper and silver — or even …
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Lumber made Bangor rich in the 19th century, but as the lumber trade declined other wood products — such as shooks — helped fill the economic gap.
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“HANCOCK ST. SCRAP — Race Feeling Ran High in the Municipal Court Monday,” said the headline in the Bangor Daily Commercial a century ago. A 9-year-old boy named Courtney had been accused of …
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his headline in the Bangor Daily Commercial on Nov. 28, 1908, a century ago this week, marked the conclusion of one of the most heinous crimes in Bangor history.
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Bangor was swarming with hobos a century ago this fall. Some had made money digging potatoes in Aroostook County. They came south on the train to the Queen City, reported the Bangor Daily Commercial …
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Editor's Note: This is the second of two columns on the logging industry and its impact on Bangor a century ago as reported in the newspapers.
RIOT ON HANCOCK STREET (March 27, 1908)
FINNS, …
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This is the first of two columns about the annual cycle of events in the logging industry and its impact on Bangor a century ago as described in the city’s two daily newspapers.
“THE LUMBER …
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Bangor’s first vaudeville theater opened with a glittering social affair a century ago this week. Union Hall, located on Union Street facing the Bangor House, had been transformed into the Union Theater, “a tasteful little vaudeville house,” according to the Bangor Daily News.
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DEPUTIES SEIZED CIGAR MACHINES, Dec. 2, 1907.
BOWEN AFTER THE GAMBLING ROOMS, Jan. 24, 1908.
Vice was serious business a century ago, and gambling was a serious vice as attested to by the two …
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Was Bangor experiencing a “drouth” a century ago this summer — a liquor drought that is? A Bangor Daily News reporter, who doubtlessly had visited more than a few of the seamy watering places …
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If you were an up-and-coming young man in Bangor a century ago, chances are you were looking for an exclusive club to boost your social standing. The Conduskeag Canoe and Country Club was a good bet. …
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FOREST FIRES RAGING ALL AROUND BANGOR, announced the lead headline in the Bangor Daily News on the morning of July 13, 1908. CINDERS FALL OVER CITY.
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Five years after the Wright brothers took off at Kitty Hawk, Bangoreans watched the practical prospects for flight develop with great excitement as well as skepticism and trepidation. It seemed that for every report of a successful flight in an aeroplane or a dirigible, there was a report of a disaster at a county fair or some other exhibition.
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