In the years after the fire of 1911, fairs became popular events to mark progress in rebuilding Bangor. One of the most successful was held Aug. 15, 1915, to celebrate the rebirth of Central Street.
New buildings lined the street. The buildings included the Central Building, which had an auditorium that was being used as an armory by the Maine National Guard’s new machine gun company; the Louis Kirstein building; and the Charles H. Frey, P.T. Dugan, Roger Staples block, consisting of three buildings with a white terra cotta facade. In addition the street and sidewalks had been widened.
The imposing John R. Graham building on the corner of Central and Harlow streets had already been in the planning stages before the fire. Details about these and other additions to the street can be read in Deborah Thompson’s architectural history of the city.
Conditions on the street were so bad during the construction that the Bangor Daily News occasionally complained about how difficult it was to get from one place to another because of all the mud and building activity. That kind of complaint disappeared as the buildings opened one by one for business.
Now that the hammering and congestion was over, Bangoreans wanted to party. For this, a city-wide “Dollar Day” was proclaimed when store owners would offer products at give-away prices, hand out dollar bills to customers and sponsor lotteries.
For $1, shoppers could pick up men’s union suits at Besse-Ashworth Department Store; Arrow shirts and men’s pants at The Outlet; boys’ knickerbocker pants and two pairs of stockings at Waterman’s Department Store; Wizard Triangle Polish Mops and Tin Top Jelly Tumblers at P.H. Vose Co. and velvet hats at Freese’s, among dozens of other bargains.
Besides the sales, there was entertainment that attracted thousands of people from towns all around Bangor. Events included a parade, band concerts, a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest, confetti throwing and fireworks in Abbott Square, where the high school used to be.
The theme of “military preparedness” was ever on people’s minds because of the war in Europe that threatened to involve the United States. Bands played patriotic tunes and the city’s new machine gun company staged a drill with its recently acquired equipment.
At 4 p.m., with most of the shopping behind them, “a human tide began flowing toward Central Street and Post Office Square (where a new post office was almost finished — the same building in which City Hall is located today).
The Bangor Band gave a concert on the steps of the new post office building before “a black mass of humanity” through which a narrow passage was maintained by the police for trolley cars, the Bangor Daily News noted.
The parade started at 5 p.m. with “a spirited tandem” driven by Charles Morse, the horse dealer who had financed the new Bowlodrome across the street. He was followed by Bangor’s National Guard units, including the machine gun company, “marching in little squads between the 12 horses which carried the guns and ammunition cases.”
They were followed by the Moose Band, a group new to the city’s parade scene. Boy Scouts and Mayor Frank Robinson in an automobile brought up the rear.
Then the machine gun company performed a half-hour drill in Post Office Square intended to show onlookers how to set up its new equipment for an attack.
“Two years ago a drill by a militia company wouldn’t have had the respectful attention accorded to the machine gun men Wednesday night,” the Bangor Daily Commercial commented the next day. “There would have been references to ‘tin soldiers’ and ‘gold lace’ and the whole affair would have been taken rather lightly.”
Then, at 8 p.m., more raucous events began until midnight, resembling something “transplanted bodily from some warm blooded southern city, nothing one reasonably might expect from this part of the Maine woods.”
Central Street was strung with Japanese lanterns. The Bangor Band gave another concert “on the bridge of the Bowlodrome,” followed by the singing Veilleux Brothers.
Everybody had armfuls of confetti, which they began throwing at each other in an event compared to a “confetti war” by the newsmen. Long paper streamers crisscrossed Central Street, while the Charlie Chaplin contestants rode the running boards of passing automobiles, and the police fought to keep open the trolley line.
It’s hard to recapture the spirit of these festivities today. Confetti wars are a thing of the past, as are war preparedness rallies. But a walk down Central Street still reveals most of the old buildings that caused so much interest and pride a century ago.
Some have been neglected a bit and others modified in ways that detract from their original charm. Nevertheless, with the later addition of the Kenduskeag Stream parkways on either side of the street where the old Norumbega Hall and the city’s post office used to sit before the fire, Central Street is still a pleasant place to walk and shop and imagine the past.
Wayne E. Reilly’s column on Bangor a century ago appears in the newspaper every other Monday. His latest book, “Hidden History of Bangor: From Lumbering Days to the Progressive Era,” is available where books are sold. Comments can be sent to him at wreilly.bdn@gmail.com