BANGOR, Maine — Have you ever wondered where in Bangor the historic fire of 1911 started and what it looks like today?
To see such an image, all you have to do is go to the month of April in Bangor Historical Society’s new “Ghosts of Bangor” calendar, done in collaboration with local photographer Rick Haney, who superimposed historic pictures on ones taken more recently.
“They’re fantastic,” Melissa Gerety, Bangor Historical Society’s executive director, said Friday. “April is Frank Green’s hayshed, which is where the fire of 1911 started. You can see the address and everything.”
Bangor Professional Firefighters, IAFF Local 772, sponsored the April calendar page.
Bangor has changed a lot in the last century, with fires, redevelopment and urban renewal demolitions in the 1960s and 70s that removed a lot of buildings in downtown Bangor and along the Kenduskeag Stream.
“You can only learn so much about history in a book,” Haney said Friday. “People who like history would rather see what it looks like.”
To remind people about Bangor’s history, last year Haney started a photo project called “Ghosts of Bangor” by using Photoshop to lay historical images on top of present-day photos to give viewers a sense of what the city was like back then.
“Once I did the first one, people started donating all their own personal photographs,” Haney said.
“I grew up right after [Bangor’s] urban renewal, and I always wondered: Why does this neighborhood end here? Why is this old and the next thing new?,” Haney said later. “I always imagined what used to be there. ‘Ghost of Bangor’ is my imagination coming to fruition, I guess.”
The local history buff said the Queen City has lost a lot of its history, and his goal is to preserve everything he can. He approached the city’s historical society about doing the calendar so others can get a glimpse into the past.
“Rick took the images and superimposed them. We went ahead and did the research so there is four or five sentences about what it was and what it is now,” Gerety said.
The “Ghost of Bangor” calendars cost $19.99 plus tax and are available at the Antique Marketplace & Cafe, The Briar Patch, Chapel Hill Floral, Rebecca’s, State Street Wine Cellar, Epic Sports and the Thomas A. Hill House Museum, at 159 Union St.
The calendar proceeds benefit the Bangor Historical Society.
Orders for the calendars are coming in from all over the country, from people who have connections to Bangor. One was sent to Tennessee Friday.
“There is a lot of interest, not just locally,” Gerety said.