summer reading

Summer in Maine! The time goes faster than you can say, don't get me stahhted! 'Nuff said. The weather outside is delightful and with all this extra daylight, it's always useful to have some ideas for outdoor activities. Between commuting to the daily grind (albeit with a Vacationland license plate) and those occasional weekend festivals around Maine, we need only be reminded of those simple and timeless pleasures.
Not passing up a chance to learn from history, StrangeMaine presents a few ideas drawn from the Archives of the Portland Public Library. You may recognize some of the landmarks...

Summer treats and walking with friends: Old Orchard Beach, 1937. A great thing to do on a lingering evening.


Sightseeing. Mainers can do this, too! Our versions of "stay-cations" include some great places. This was taken on Portland's Eastern Promenade, near Fort Allen Park in 1953.


Go for a spin in your faithful old car! This image was taken in 1944, though the car (called the "Deering High School Staff Car") is much older than that. Your passenger might even wind up with a foot on the windshield!


A carefree bicycle ride. Extra credit if you decorate the spokes! This was taken in 1953.


Baseball! Maybe playing it, maybe going out to the ball game. Here are the Portland Pilots in 1947. Back then, the place where Hadlock Field stands was called Portland Stadium. The firehouse on the left on the picture is still there, and the street in the background is Washburn Street.


Do some writing. In this fine weather, you can bring those literary projects outdoors! If your car doesn't have a rumble seat (and a pillow) , there are always lawn chairs. This picture is from 1938.


Sketching by the sea. Get out the charcoal, the watercolors, or the oils- and maybe a few kindred artists. Recording their impressions, these captivated folks were photographed in 1951.

The Beach. Well, of course. And we all have our favorites. Here's Portland's East End Beach in 1953.


Don't forget to keep plenty of water handy in that wicked hot weather. Or Moxie. Here's an aqueous-minded dog at the SPCA Pullen Fountain on Portland's Federal Street, in 1948.

Have a fabulous summer- and take lots of pictures, too!

Photographs from: Portland Press Herald Still Film Negative Collection, Portland Public Library Archives.

Happy Halloween !

A photo for the season, from the Archives !
This was taken by a Portland Press-Herald photographer in 1939.

The long arms of the law were strong enough to bag 'dem bones!

mystery photo : a Maine castle

living la vie de château, en Maine !

... but where is this ???

mystery photo : off the beaten track

Clang! Clang! This is Portland!

- - -but where in Portland? Can you guess?

mystery photo : it's academic, part 3

While we still don't have a winning guess for part 2, here's yet another mystery photo:

Can you guess where (in Maine) this is ???

...yes, it's another school- but this one is a college.

mystery photo : it's academic, part 2

Yes, it's another mystery photo from the Archives!
Can you guess what and where this is ??

Hint: This is a school.

mystery photo : it's academic !

All right, esteemed Strange Maine browsers- can you name the building?
This original photo is a 19th-century cyanotype.

(Hint: this one has a haunted history !)

mystery photo

Yes!
Contrary to popular belief, spring is on the way.
Along with the milder season, more ghost streets will appear, too!
But for now, here is a mysterious Maine building for you to identify. This was built in 1830 and still stands.


What is this, and where is it??

Tales of Terror this Halloween Season : Victoria Mansion, Portland

from our friends at Victoria Mansion...

Tales of Terror!
Victoria Mansion hosts 19th-century storytelling and scary tours for Halloween.

Tales of Terror Saturday, October 18, 2008
Two Performances, 6-7:3o p.m. or 8:00-9:30 p.m.

What could be a more perfect setting than a big, Victorian mansion to hear the wickedly scary, nineteenth-century tales created by two of the most frightening imaginations in history?

Join us at Victoria Mansion for a spectacular performance of the The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe and Green Tea by J. Sheridan Le Fanu by Portland storyteller Lynne Cullen. http://www.lynnecullen.com/

The evening begins with tours of the house dimly lit at gas lighting levels complemented by chilling, nineteenth-century music.

Ghoulish guides grant you passagethrough the dark halls of the Mansion. To participate in this terrifying evening, you must reserve your space inadvance...if you dare!

Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for mansion membersand $10 for kids. Please call 207.772.4841 ext. 10 or email information@victoriamansion.org

Faint of Heart Beware!

GENERAL MUSEUM INFORMATION Victoria Mansion is located at 109 Danforth Street just steps from the Old Port. The Mansion is open for its regular season of tours May - October, Monday - Saturday, 10-4, Sunday 1-5. All tours are guided and reservations are not necessary for groups under 10. www.victoriamansion.org Join us November 23 - December 30 for our Holiday Season of tours.

Photos of Victoria Mansion (ca. 1940)

from the Portland Public Library Archives!

mystery photo from South Portland

A new-old mystery photo to enjoy this weekend....
The picture was taken in the Redbank Village housing development, in 1947
(and can be clicked for a larger scan).
What is going on here ?

Dare to venture a guess ??

mystery photo !

All right, fellow Maine Olympians !

Here's a track meet photo (the original is a Kodachrome slide) taken in 1954.
The image can be clicked to show the full sized scan.

Can you guess where this is ???

(another) mystery photo !

In these balmy summer days, Strange Maine brings you yet another Mystery Photo. Can you guess where this is ?? (Image below can be clicked to enlarge)

Thanksgiving Tukey

Maine Strangeness may be found in the least-expected crevasses and corners of our dear State, even (and surely) among documents and archives. A small detail may draw our glimpse- such as it does, at the Portland Public Library, this time in the Portland Room's map collection.

Indeed, though many Miles from Standish, notwithstanding Pilgrimage nor Courtship, and far from Plymouth (having Forded no water beside that of Back Cove), we are replete with Thanksgiving for the stuffing that now brings Tukey's Bridge to our feasting table. And that's no gobbledy gook!

While conserving an 1871 map of Portland, printed by F.W. Beers (in New York, take note), a modest detail caught the attention of the Archivist...
(Photos can be clicked to be enlarged)

...first in the smaller map, giving the layout and legend of the following larger maps, and...


...then in the detailed map, the name of Tukey's Bridge- a name that has existed from 1796 and continues today...

...has been printed throughout the Beers Atlas as Turkey's Bridge. An anomaly we have not seen on any other map of the city- old or new.


Just below is a picture, correctly labeled, as printed by the City of Portland, for the 1897 Municipal Annual Report, showing how the bridge appeared in its era as a swing-bridge which allowed passage for the city's trolleys and traffic between Munjoy Hill and East Deering.

John Tukey was among the settlers in the Portland region when, in 1744, it was still known as Falmouth. Tukey was a shipwright, and among his 14 children, all born in Portland, was William Tukey who had been among the builders of the Portland Head Light, the first lighthouse built in Maine.

Here is the present manifestation of the bridge, still as ever known as Tukey's Bridge. Above is a view from Munjoy Hill and below, a view from Baxter Boulevard.

And, finally, a detail from a new map...

(The "R" has been correctly (and thankfully) dropped- something that rarely happens in Maine??)

Halloween Awakened Spirits from the Library

"Give me the calm of Days decline,
to muse upon my own,"

...reads the frontispiece of the palm-sized Halloween, an artifact exhumed from the depths of the Portland Public Library's Special Collections. The volume was published in Hartford in 1847. The author, Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1818-1896), is simply attributed in the book as "A.C.C.," writes in the beginning stanzas of his narrative:

"I have been roaming in that Spirit-world,
and still my deathless love return'd to thee;
And still thy brow, thy locks in lustre curl'd,
And thy dear eye of beauty shone on me..."

mysterious recycled R found on old Maine map

"Hey Chummy, would that be the AHH you
drawped the othah day???"

Indeed, a good thrifty Maine Yankee would
surely hesitate to waste a good re-usable item,
and that would include the Rs (pronounced AHHs)
many of us will drop left and right like mussel shells
on the beach.

Well, in the midst of conserving a map of the Portland
region, the crew in the Portland Room (Special Collections & Archives) at the Portland Public Library, came across an amazing example of an apparently recycled R.

The Map of Cape Elizabeth, albeit produced in the far-off, foreign land of Massachusetts (see bottom photo), shows the Katahdin Road (for which we locals will take our liberties in drawing out the already- existing "ah" out as our musical speech of the moment will dictate) indicated with what seems to be a reconstituted R.

A detail on a map so tiny, yet so noticeable, reveals the name Katardin in plain capitalized block type (see detail immediately below).

Strange Things do happen
when our local cadences are
misinterpreted- and then
re-interpreted again,
even on road maps!

Another good reason, especially in this
area-rrr to use care when treading, as you
might find yourself stepping right over a
discahhded R.

Old Congress Street Photo, Portland ME

Courtesy of Abraham Schechter, who runs the Portland Public Library's Portland Room. Abraham was excavating the storage room last year as he continued his campaign to revitalize and reorganize the Portland Room, and came across a stack of beautiful old glass negatives. He has kindly consented to share a sample of them with us, and here is a great one.

See if you can recognize this intersection on Congress Street in Portland. Abraham estimates the time period of the photo to be circa 1900-1910. Yet many of the buildings shown are still very much as they are today! Click on the photo for a larger version to inspect details.

For any of you interested in researching Maine history, the Portland Room is a one-of-a-kind resource, packed with books and documents with which to while away the hours in blissful historical research.