A century ago, Florida’s palm trees and balmy weather were already beckoning Bangoreans in winter. A trip to Florida still was a novel enough experience to provoke people like J. A. Thompson, a wealthy timberland owner, to write a letter to the editor.
On March 31, 1916, the Bangor Daily Commercial printed his letter as a news story, datelined Palatka, Florida. MANY BANGOREANS MEET EACH OTHER IN FLORIDA, the main headline read. It continued: “Several Bangor People Are Wintering There.”
Back then you wintered or it probably wasn’t worth the effort to get there. Traveling by steamboat or train took a good deal of time, while travel by automobile, especially in winter, was risky business at best. Only the wealthy had the time and money to make the trip.
Thompson met up with E. J. Murch, another timberland owner, in Jacksonville. Both men were part of that empire in the North Woods upon which Bangor’s economic base rested at the time.
A short time later in Orlando, Thompson bumped into George B. Foster, a former Bangor contractor. Edwin N. Miller of Miller & Webster’s clothes store also was soaking up the pastoral joys of Orlando’s orange groves and live oaks long before the Disney entertainment empire came to town.
Thompson continued his journey across the state to St. Petersburg, where he checked into the Huntington Hotel. He encountered Mr. and Mrs. T. R. Savage. Savage was president of the wholesale grocery firm T. R. Savage Co.
Thompson had just missed Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Babcock, who had left for the season. Babcock no doubt had certain duties to attend to at Stickney and Babcock Coal Co., where he was president and treasurer.
Across the street from the Huntington in another hotel, Thompson paid his respects to Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Sawyer (Andrew was president of Sawyer Boot and Shoe Co.), Mrs. Howard Sawyer (Howard was treasurer) and Mrs. Walter Savage (Walter was listed as the treasurer of T. R. Savage in 1914).
One day while boarding a trolley car, Thompson met Dr. Arthur Allen, treasurer of another Bangor business, Arthur Allen Optical Co., optometrists and opticians.
I have taken all of the above professional identifications from the Bangor city directory. Thompson did not bother to identify either himself or any of the individuals he encountered (except Foster, the former contractor). As a version of the old saying goes, if you had to ask, you probably had no reason to know. It tells us something about who read newspapers back then.
Thompson could no doubt have met dozens of other Bangor folks had he continued on to other cities in the Sunshine State. But just think what these folks were missing — Bangor in springtime in all its glory. If I had lived a century ago and had a chance to see Florida or Bangor in April, I definitely would have chosen the latter no matter how unfashionable it might have been.
In 1916, the ice had gone down the Penobscot River by April 1, giving the reporter at the Bangor Daily News a chance to wax nostalgic: “Years ago the going out of the ice was a matter of great interest, so much so that the boys used to help things along by breaking off ice-cakes and sending them down. Now it doesn’t make so much difference as there is but little shipping and that is in no hurry.”
By 11 a.m. the next day, the little Bon Ton Ferry had been launched from the Brewer side of the river, and by 2:30 p.m. it had made its first trip of the season to Bangor and back along the route now followed by the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge. This was the first real sign it was spring, declared the Brewer correspondent to the Bangor Daily News on April 3.
Spring rituals continued. Next, it was time to catch the first salmon of the season in the pools in the river between Bangor and Brewer across from the Eastern Maine General Hospital.
The two winners were announced on April 7. One of them was none other than the famous angler Miss Jeanette Sullivan of 377 Hancock St., who had performed the same feat before. Her boatman was Patrick Nelligan of 385 Hancock St. The other prize fish was caught by Michael Flanagan of 34 Pearl St., who had hooked the first salmon last year.
The fish were taken to Gallagher’s Uptown Market on State Street, where they were packed and shipped to Washington, D.C., for President Woodrow Wilson’s dinner table. “In the course of a day or two they will have something decent to eat at the White House,” the reporter commented.
There were lots of other events to mark the coming of spring to the Queen City. The annual food fair, sponsored by the local organization of traveling salesmen, had been held in February, while the annual automobile show was scheduled for later in April.
In previous years, the first straw hat of the season worn by a man was worth a mention in the papers. By 1916, a new event, Dress-Up Week, observed by “progressive cities throughout the country,” began April 3.
The idea was for “well-dressed, prosperous” people to get out their best clothes to celebrate the coming of spring. The “fine [clothes] stores” on Main, Central and Exchange streets, of course, were hoping prosperous folks lacking such clothes would drop by and stock up.
“Clothes may not make a man, but they go a mighty long way toward obtaining for him the respect of his neighbors and the confidence of his employer,” the wise reporter observed, who may have been slipped a dollar or two by city clothing magnates to write in this manner.
While J. A. Thompson and his fellow travelers were admiring Florida’s sunny vistas, in fact, a much larger group of people were planning a trip to Bangor. The Democratic Party — 1,220 delegates strong — was holding its convention in the Queen City, while the Republicans were holding similar festivities in Portland. Bangor boosters used the event to promote the city’s hotels.
BANGOR’S TRIUMPH AS A HOTEL CITY, the headline in the Bangor Daily News on March 30 brayed. “Ample Accommodations for All delegates, in Contrast to What Happened in Portland Last Week.”
Uh-oh! What happened in Portland? Had Bangor finally won the hotel war with its larger and more sophisticated rival to the south?
In Portland, “many delegates were reduced to sleeping in leather-covered chairs in the lobbies,” claimed one of the Republican delegates, while “others preferred to walk the streets and view the beauties of Casco Bay all night. A half dozen sought shelter in the police station, where they were given beds.”
A Boston reporter commented that one of the things that most impressed him at the conference was “the complete collapse of Portland’s hotel facilities.” The source of all this negative gossip about the Forest City remained undisclosed.
Things apparently went a good deal better with the Democrats in Bangor. The proprietor of “one of Bangor’s big hotels” was able to plant a different story in the press: “Of course we had rooms for all of them, said he. We may have doubled them up a bit — several in every room and cots in the corridors. But everyone who came here got a bed, and he didn’t have to go hungry.”
Bangor had a large collection of hotels and boarding houses catering to all manner of people. The Bangor House was reputedly the finest, followed by the Penobscot Exchange, on Exchange Street near the train station, and the Windsor Hotel, newly rebuilt after the fire of 1911 on Harlow Street.
It’s safe to say that these hotels were not the luxurious palaces one can find at almost any exit along an Interstate highway today. Besides sharing rooms with strangers or sleeping out in the hallway when things were busy, one might find oneself in a room with no bathroom.
The Bangor House, where presidents and other dignitaries and celebrities had stayed over the decades, announced in a Bangor Daily News story Jan 22, 1915, that it was going to install “lavatories” in the 60 rooms still lacking such facilities.
The minimum price for a room would be $3 with an additional 50 cents for one with a bath beginning May 1, according to the newspaper April 7, 1916. Presumably presidents and other celebrities paid a good deal more for suites with modern plumbing and other conveniences.
Chances are conditions were no different in the Bangor House than in many of the better hotels in Florida for an average guest in an average room. But a trip to Bangor in the spring enabled one to witness ice-out on the Penobscot River and all that came after.
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