PRESQUE ISLE — In 1959, the city of Presque Isle was marking its 100th birthday. Celebrating 100 years of anything is exciting, but the occasion was made even more poignant when the city was selected to supply the national Christmas tree.
Kim Smith, a writer and a member of the Presque Isle Historical Society, knows that many younger residents are not aware of that fact. That is why she chose it as a subject for her second annual holiday lecture at Northern Maine Community College on Tuesday.
Smith spoke briefly about the history behind the president lighting a national Christmas tree each year — the tradition originated with Calvin Coolidge in 1923 — and she talked specifically about the 1959 national Christmas tree. The 70-foot-tall white spruce, the only national Christmas tree ever to come from Maine, according to records provided by the National Park Service, came from the Alice Kimball farm on Parsons Road. The 85-year-old tree was provided for the Pageant of Peace, which encompassed other activities such as music and singing that became part of the tree lighting ceremony beginning in 1954.
“This was really a big event in our city, and it was big news around here back in the late 1950s,” Smith, an experienced lecturer and Presque Isle’s 2010 Citizen of the Year, said Tuesday evening. “It really put the city on the map.”
Planning for Presque Isle’s 1959 centennial fete began a year earlier, and organizers began bouncing around the idea of providing the national tree.
“In March of 1958, the city learned that they would be providing the tree,” Smith said. “Up until that time, the national tree had always come from a national forest, and it had always come from a location west of the Mississippi. So this was really a historic occasion in many ways.”
It also was the first tree provided by a private citizen.
The process to select the tree was detailed, according to Smith. Officials searched the city for several months, and the final choice had to be approved by federal officials.
The tree was cut down and packaged by five former Maine Public Service Co. workers for shipment by rail to Washington, D.C. Two of the workers, Bill Robinson and Dick Gillen, spoke to the Bangor Daily News this week about their memories of that time.
The men said several other people were present when the white spruce tree was cut down, including city officials, members of the Presque Isle Area Chamber of Commerce and railroad representatives.
Robinson and Gillen said it took close to eight hours to cut and package the tree and put it on a rail car for the trip to the nation’s capital. Two men at a time, with the five workers alternating turns, used a crosscut saw to fell the tree.
Once in Washington, the tree was officially lit by President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a ceremony that included singing, music and other entertainment.
The tradition of states sending trees to the nation’s capital ended in 1978, when a Colorado blue spruce was planted on the Ellipse, a 52-acre park located just south of the White House fence. Now referred to as the National Christmas Tree, it was 15 years old and 30 feet tall when it arrived in our nation’s capital 31 years ago. Today, the 46-year-old tree stands about 42 feet tall.
Other than pictures and notes in historical records, Presque Isle received nothing for providing the tree, according to Smith, and it is not known if anyone from the city traveled to see it lit.
“It really is an interesting part of city and state history,” said Smith. “It is not something that every city can claim, which makes it all the more special.”