100 Years in Maine> Part Five: Maine Diary, A Time Line of History in the Twentieth Century

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“Maine Diary” is part five of a commemorative series celebrating 100 years of Maine life.

We asked historians and other experts to help us create a list of the most interesting and important events in the 20th century in Maine. The result is Maine Diary, a time line containing hundreds of items from the appearance of Buffalo Bill in Bangor in 1900 to the reappearance of Phish in Aroostook County in 1998.

We visited libraries and archives to find dozens of photographs summing up the triumphs and tragedies and, most of all, the changes that have revolutionized life here. Whether a photograph of an armed deputy guarding the ruins of downtown Bangor after the great fire of 1911 (top), jubilant soldiers celebrating the surrender of Japan in World War II (center), or of the little town of Passadumkeag under water (right) during the worst flooding of the century in 1987, these images are burned into our consciousness.

Our goal was to identify events that mattered such as the manufacture of the legendary Lombard log haulers that revolutionized woods work at the turn of the century. The list also includes the worst crimes and tragedies, such as the death of 16 babies and a nurse at a home in Auburn in 1945; the achievements of many of our greatest celebrities from Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to Joey Gamache Jr.; and the merely odd, such as the arrival of Bangor’s accidental tourist, Erwin Kreutz, in 1977.

There’s something here for everybody, and readers are free to add their personal selections to make the list complete.

1900-1909 …

1900

Maine’s population was 694,466.

Great Northern Paper Co., the biggest private employer in northern Maine for most of the 20th century, began producing newsprint in Millinocket in the largest paper mill in the world.

The Bangor Whig & Courier ceased publication.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show made a return performance to Bangor. An estimated 16,000 people turned out to see Annie Oakley and a re-enactment of the Battle of San Juan Hill.

The George W. Wells, the first six-masted schooner built on the Atlantic coast, was launched at Camden.

Civil War hero and ex-Gov. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain became surveyor of the port of Portland, a position he held until his death in 1914.

Eastport native Amos “Mysterious Billy” Smith, boxing’s first welterweight champion of the world, lost his title to Rube Ferns on a foul in the 21st round.

Bishop James Healy, son of an Irish immigrant and an African-American slave, died after 25 years as head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

A horse-drawn ambulance equipped with sleigh runners was donated to Eastern Maine General Hospital in Bangor.

1901

Sarah Orne Jewett, author of “The Country of the Pointed Firs,” became the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Bowdoin College.

Sangerville native and machine gun inventor Hiram Maxim was knighted.

The USS Georgia, the only battleship built in Maine, was launched at Bath Iron Works.

The Waterville Iron Works began manufacturing Lombard Log Haulers, invented by Springfield native A.O. Lombard. They revolutionized woods work by allowing loggers to haul huge loads out of the forest. Caterpillar Co. later adapted the design for farm equipment.

Eastern Maine Insane Hospital, now called Bangor Mental Health Institute, began admitting patients.

Lakewood, one of the oldest summer theaters in the nation, presented its first play in Skowhegan.

1902

Ice and floating logs in the Penobscot River jammed together in March causing a major flood that destroyed a wooden covered bridge and a railroad bridge between Bangor and Brewer.

Buckfield native John D. Long retired as U.S. secretary of the Navy.

1903

Influential painter Robert Henri visited Monhegan Island and discovered “a wonderful place to paint.” His enthusiasm drew other artists such as Rockwell Kent, George Bellows and Edward Hopper.

1904

A typhoid fever epidemic struck the Bangor area. Drinking Penobscot River water was blamed.

1905

The Maine Sea Coast Missionary Society was incorporated to serve islands and other coastal communities. The Sunbeam became its famous boat.

The Maine Highway Commission was created by the Legislature to improve rural roads as the automobile started becoming popular.

The Secretary of State’s Office issued motor vehicle registrations for the first time. They cost $2 and were good for the life of the car. The speed limit on country roads had been set previously at 15 mph, and on city streets at 5 mph. Bells that could be heard at 300 feet had to be attached to motor vehicles, and a lighted lamp was required beginning one hour after sunset.

M.G. Shaw Lumber Co. of Greenville erected the nation’s first forest fire lookout tower. Located on Squaw Mountain, it was manned by William Hilton of Bangor.

1906

The state had 109 pulp and paper mills, up from 21 in 1885.

Two years after a Stanley Steamer climbed Mount Washington in New Hampshire, another one set a land speed record of 127.66 miles per hour.

The last known cougar in Maine was killed at Mount Kineo.

1907

The last caribou sighting in Maine was reported.

Pioneering research at the University of Maine Agricultural Experiment Station between 1892 and 1907 led to the science of dietetics.

The Legislature adopted a popular initiative and referendum law. It first was used in 1911 to bring about direct-primary voting in state and county elections.

Mamie Bilodeau, a sewer in the finishing room of Marston Worsted Mill in Skowhegan, led the first successful Industrial Workers of the World strike in the United States.

Thomas Lyons, granite cutter and union offical from Vinalhaven, was appointed state commissioner of labor, the first drawn from the ranks of workers.

The Maine Senate approved the last effort to move the state capital from Augusta to Portland, but the measure was narrowly defeated in the House.

1908

1909

The 58-hour workweek was adopted in Maine for women and children. The minimum age for child labor was raised from 14 to 16.

The Bangor Opera House and other Bangor theaters screened silent motion pictures for the first time.

Robert E. Peary and companions reached the North Pole. He made his first public appearance to speak about the historic event at the Bangor House.

The 392-foot Wyoming, the largest wooden schooner ever used in the United States, was launched at Percy and Small shipyard in Bath.

1910-1919 …

1910

Winslow Homer died in his studio at Prouts Neck after three decades of painting some of the world’s greatest marine art.

Eastern Maine General Hospital in Bangor installed its first X-ray equipment.

John W. Coombs of Freeport pitched the Philadelphia Athletics to victory in three World Series games.

Frederick Plaisted was elected governor, the first Democrat since 1880.

President William Howard Taft lectured from the balcony of the Bangor House on a tour through Maine.

The name Central Maine Power Co. was first used. The company had fewer than 5,000 customers. By 1924 CMP had acquired 37 electric companies.

Farmington native Lillian Nordica made her last appearance at the Metropolitan Opera.

1911

A fire in Bangor destroyed $3 million of downtown real estate and claimed two lives. Losses included Norumbega Hall, the post office and Custom House, the Bangor Public Library and several churches.

Maine’s highest temperature of the century — 105 degrees — was recorded July 4 at North Bridgton.

French-speaking Catholics lobbied the Legislature for a law that would remove control of local church finances from the Irish-American bishop.

U.S. Sen. William P. Frye died while holding the office of Senate president pro tempore (senior member of the majority party) between 1895 and 1911, longer than anyone before or since.

1912

Maine backed Woodrow Wilson for president. The last time voters chose a Democrat was in 1852 when Bowdoin College graduate Franklin Pierce was elected.

Andrew Sockalexis of Indian Island became the first Mainer to qualify and compete in an Olympic event, finishing fourth in the marathon in Sweden.

Abdul Baha, son of the founder of the Bahai Faith, visited Eliot, which served as the center of the religion in North America until 1925.

L.L. Bean started selling his famous hunting boot by mail order from Freeport

The Campfire Girls was developed by Mrs. Luther Halsey Gulick at her Sebago Lake camp.

1913

Voters created the Maine Public Utilities Commission in a referendum.

The Bangor Public Library opened a new building on Harlow Street.

The first bird for which a definite crossing of the Atlantic was recorded was a common tern banded at Eastern Egg Rock. It was found dead in 1917 at the mouth of the Niger River in West Africa.

The state registered 10,676 passenger cars and 391 trucks; 13,331 people had operator’s licenses.

1915

The first Workers’ Compensation law was enacted.

William Carrigan of Lewiston managed the Boston Red Sox, leading them to World Series titles in 1915 and 1916.

A German army officer tried unsuccessfully to blow up the Canadian Pacific Railway bridge between Vanceboro and Canada before being arrested on neutral U.S. soil. The bridge was a winter supply route between western and eastern Canada, a country with which Germany was already at war.

The William P. Frye, built by the Sewalls of Bath, became the first American merchant ship destroyed by the Germans before the United States entered WWI in 1917.

1916

Sieur de Monts National Monument, later renamed Lafayette National Park and then Acadia National Park, was created on Mount Desert Island. It was the first national park east of the Mississippi and the first on an ocean.

The Portland trolley strike was the biggest labor action in Maine up to that time.

1917

The Kittery-Portsmouth Naval Shipyard launched the first Navy-built submarine as part of the World War I effort.

Camden High School graduate Edna St. Vincent Millay published “Renascence and Other Poems.” She received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1923.

Maine repealed its “peonage law,” which made it a crime for woods workers to quit their jobs after receiving advances for expenses such as clothing. Since the law was passed in 1907, 342 men had been jailed.

1918

Maine sent 35,061 residents to serve in World War I. Of those, 1,026 died.

A worldwide influenza epidemic reached Maine during which 43,242 residents became ill; 2,554 died. An additional 1,556 died of often influenza-related pneumonia. In Bangor, Father P.J. Garrity offered his State Street residence as an annex to Eastern Maine General Hospital, and in less than 48 hours patients were being admitted.

1919

A decline in the number of lobsters began, with catches falling from 16 million to 17 million pounds to 5 million to 7 million pounds throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Research at the University of Maine’s Agricultural Experiment Station by Raymond Pearl, Karl Sax and others contributed to the development of much of the modern science of genetics.

Researchers estimated the state’s forests contained only 79.72 million cords of standing timber, the low point for the century, because of timber harvesting and clearing for farms.

The first airplane on a cross-country flight flew into Bangor.

Kennebunk summer resident Booth Tarkington won Pulitzer Prizes for “The Magnificent Ambersons” (1919) and “Alice Adams” (1922).

First destroyer named for a Confederate officer, Adm. Franklin Buchanan, was launched at Bath Iron Works.

1920-1929

1921

Guy Gannett bought and merged the Portland Herald and the Portland Daily Press, and bought the Waterville Sentinel.

The Medical School of Maine, located at Bowdoin College, closed after a century.

University of Maine Agricultural Experiment Station researchers discovered most potato diseases are viruses carried by aphids.

1922

Edwin Arlington Robinson, who was raised in Gardiner, won the first of three Pulitzer Prizes for poetry.

The tourism industry established the Maine Publicity Bureau, which was given state funds a few years later.

The first photograph sent by radio across the Atlantic from Europe was received at Bar Harbor.

1923

Owen Gould Davis, a Portland native who grew up in Bangor, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his play “Icebound,” set in Veazie. With more than 200 plays to his credit, Davis was called the “most prolific and produced playwright” in America.

WABI-AM, the oldest continuing radio station in Maine, began broadcasting in Bangor.

A state gasoline tax was established to support road building.

Rep. Dora B. Pinkham, R-Fort Kent, became the first woman elected to the Legislature.

The first Eastern Orthodox church was organized in Bangor. Construction on St. George Greek Orthodox Church began in 1929.

A Nobel Prize was awarded to Frederick Banting and John MacLeod for the discovery of insulin. Banting shared his prize with 24-year-old Charles H. Best, a native of West Pembroke, for his contribution to the discovery at the University of Toronto.

1924

The Ku Klux Klan claimed more than 50,000 members in Maine. Franco-Americans battled Klan members in demonstrations in Greenville and Fairfield and on the bridge between Biddeford and Saco.

1925

Bangor Hydro-Electric Co., powering 20,000 customers and a street railway in the Bangor area, was incorporated with the consolidation of several smaller companies in eastern Maine.

The lowest recorded temperature in Maine history was measured at 48 degrees below zero on Jan. 19 at Van Buren.

Prohibition reduced the number of herring smokehouses from 124 in 1919 to 10. Bars had been the prime buyers of smoked herring.

Guy Gannett acquired the Portland Evening Express and the Portland Sunday Telegram, later the Maine Sunday Telegram.

1926

The First Radio Parish Church of America, the oldest continually broadcast religious program in the United States, was founded on WCSH-AM in Portland.

The Peirce Memorial, designed by Brewer native Charles Tefft and paid for out of the estate of Bangor philanthropist Luther Peirce, was unveiled beside the Bangor Public Library. The bronze statue of three river drivers is probably Bangor’s finest public monument.

1927

Billy Sunday, the famous evangelist, held a five-week revival in Bangor. The Bangor Daily News printed his sermons verbatim, including one in which he asked, “If Christ came to Bangor would He be welcomed …”

The child labor law was amended to require that minors have at least an eighth-grade education before getting a work permit. The previous law required only sixth-grade completion.

The chickadee was named Maine’s state bird.

Dr. Barbara Hunt became the first woman to join the medical staff at Eastern Maine General Hospital in Bangor. She introduced radium to treat cancer patients, and she died as a result of prolonged exposure.

A crowd of 5,000 witnessed the unveiling of Charles Tefft’s statue of Hannibal Hamlin on the Kenduskeag Mall in Bangor. Vice President Hamlin lived in Hampden and Bangor before his death in 1891.

1928

Adelphia “Del” Bissonette of Winthrop set a National League rookie record for home runs with 28 while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Edmund “Rip” Black, a Bailey Island lobsterman and University of Maine student, won the bronze medal in the hammer throw at the Olympics.

The first international dog sled mail delivery left Lewiston on Dec. 20, 1928, and arrived in Montreal on Jan. 14, 1929.

1929

The Jackson Laboratory, a genetics research institution, was founded in Bar Harbor by former University of Maine president and genetics pioneer Clarence Cook Little. The institution was named for Roscoe B. Jackson, head of the Hudson Motorcar Co. and a prominent Bar Harbor summer resident who helped provide funding.

The number of Maine farms had dropped from 59,000 to 39,000 since 1900.

1930-1939 …

1930

Groundfishing had been transformed by four innovations since 1910: the engine, the otter trawl, the filleting machine, and refrigeration.

Kenneth Roberts’ first novel, “Arundel,” was published. The Kennebunk resident went on to be widely regarded as the pioneer of the modern historical novel, winning a special Pulitzer Prize citation just before his death in 1957.

Rudy Vallee made UM’s “Stein Song” the No. 1 hit in the nation.

Bath Iron Works launched the Corsair, the largest yacht built in the United States, for J.P. Morgan.

Belfast native William V. Pratt replaced Bath native Charles F. Hughes as chief of U.S. naval operations. They are the highest-ranking Maine-born military officers ever.

1931

Percival Baxter donated Mount Katahdin, the first gift in his visionary effort to create the 200,000-acre state park that bears his name.

Mollie Spotted Elk of Indian Island danced, sang and played the tom-tom with the United States Indian Band at the International Colonial Exposition in Paris. She performed the opening dance for dignitaries from around the world.

Pan American Airways inaugurated scheduled passenger service to Bangor.

Maine’s largest hydroelectric dam, Wyman Dam, was built in Moscow. It was named after Walter Wyman, founder of Central Maine Power Co.

Dial phones replaced hand-cranked models in Bangor.

1932

Maine’s representation in the U.S. House of Representatives dropped from four seats to three based on the 1930 census.

Maine voted against Franklin Delano Roosevelt for president in all four elections, beginning this year. Yet, Lewis Brann was elected governor, the first Democrat in 18 years.

The Houlton High School cross-country team won the national title.

1933

Twenty percent of Maine’s manufacturing workers were out of work because of the Great Depression. Meanwhile, 16,000 youths joined the Civilian Conservation Corps during its nine-year existence.

Railroad passengers had declined from 4 million in 1920 to 375,000 as automobiles grew in popularity.

Beginning this year, Jonesport native William Mansfield coached Winslow High to five state basketball titles and six Eastern Maine crowns in seven years.

Gladys Hasty Carroll’s novel “As the Earth Turns” was published.

1934

John Marin bought a summer home at Cape Split in Addison, and for the rest of his life produced some of the greatest marine watercolors of our coast.

The nation’s largest strike reached Maine. The National Guard was called out to preserve peace around textile mills in Augusta, Waterville, Lewiston and other cities. Mass mobile pickets called “flying squadrons” canvassed the state. Riot guns and tear gas were used on some strikers.

Don Favor of Portland won the IC4A and NCAA titles in the hammer throw for the University of Maine, going on to place sixth during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

The Maine Law, the nation’s oldest prohibition law, was repealed a year after federal Prohibition ended.

The federal government gave Maine Indians the right to vote.

Amelia Earhart flew to Bangor, advancing the role of women in flight.

Moody’s Diner opened on newly relocated Route 1 in Waldoboro. A cup of coffee and a crabmeat sandwich cost 25 cents.

1935

The last passenger steamship on the Penobscot River river ended a century of steamer service from Boston to Bangor.

Work began on the Passamaquoddy Tidal Project, a vision to harness tides at Eastport for hydroelectric power. A U.S. Senate vote in 1936 effectively killed the project.

1936

Bowdoin College Professor Robert P. Tristram Coffin won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

1937

Two members of the bank-robbing Brady Gang were gunned down on Central Street in Bangor by federal agents. A third gangster was captured.

A shoe strike in Lewiston and Auburn closed 19 factories, becoming one of the largest and most violent labor actions in Maine history. A melee involving hundreds of strikers and police at the Lewiston-Auburn bridge was dubbed “Red Wednesday” by newspaper writers, and 500 National Guardsmen were sent to keep peace.

The Ranger, built at Bath Iron Works for Harold Vanderbilt, won the America’s Cup race.

1938

Franco-Americans in Lewiston founded the state’s first credit union, one of several self-help measures Francos initiated during the Great Depression. During the 1930s, Roosevelt’s New Deal programs particularly helped unemployed Franco-American textile workers and struggling Acadian potato farmers, turning them into confirmed Democrats and changing the face of Maine politics.

Frances Estelle Moulton, elected president of the Limerick National Bank, was the first woman national bank president in the country.

1939

Lewiston native Marsden Hartley, believed by many art critics to be the greatest native Maine painter of the 20th century, went to Mount Katahdin and began to produce some of his finest paintings as well as poems.

The state’s maximum speed limit was raised to 45 mph.

Donn Fendler, 12, of Rye, N.Y., made national headlines when he was lost for more than a week near Mount Katahdin. The experience resulted in a classic book, “Lost on a Mountain in Maine.”

Maine’s first open-air theater, the Saco Drive-in, opened.

1940-1949 …

1940

John Ford, Maine-born film director, won one of his six Academy Awards for “The Grapes of Wrath.”

The only Maine native to fight for the heavyweight title, Winslow native Florian LeBrasseur, who boxed under the name Al McCoy, lost to heavyweight champion Joe Louis in a fifth-round TKO at Boston Garden.

Around 1940, Maine became the state with the highest number of acres growing potatoes, with more than a quarter of a million. By 1998 Maine’s potato acreage had declined to seventh in the nation with only 65,500.

Kingdon Harvey took over as editor of Fort Fairfield Review and began firing salvos from his long-running column “Tom E. Rott.”

Walter van Tilburg Clark of East Orland wrote the novel “The Oxbow Incident.”

Group health insurance came to eastern Maine with the opening of the offices of the Associated Hospital Service Plan of Maine in Bangor.

1941

President Roosevelt came ashore at Rockland after meeting British Prime Minister Winston Churchill off the coast of Newfoundland where they discussed Nazi aggression and released the Atlantic Charter, a statement of shared objectives. The United States had not yet entered the war.

Ben Ames Williams produced two famous historical novels about Maine: “Come Spring” (1940) and “The Strange Woman” (1941).

1942

A pipeline was built from Portland to Montreal to move petroleum, keeping it away from German U-boats.

Dow Air Force Base base was established at Bangor Municipal Airport, formerly called Godfrey Field.

1943

During World War II, Bath Iron Works produced 82 destroyers, and the New England Shipbuilding Corp. in South Portland built 30 ocean-class freighters and 236 Liberty ships.

Jack Benny’s radio troupe broadcast to the nation from the Bangor Opera House.

German POWs were kept in camps at Houlton, Princeton, Seboomook Township and Spencer Lake picking potatoes and cutting pulp.

Sangerville native and Bowdoin graduate Sir Harry Oakes, who discovered the second-largest gold mine ever, was murdered at his mansion in the Bahamas in one of the most sensational unsolved crimes of the century.

1944

The worst air crash in Maine history occurred when an Army bomber crashed into Redbank Trailer Park in South Portland, killing the two crewmen and 17 people on the ground, and destroying 16 house trailers.

Waterville High School captured the New England basketball championship.

The FBI captured two German spies in New York City after a U-boat left them at Hancock Point.

Called “the ship that wouldn’t die,” the Laffey, a destroyer built at Bath Iron Works, was hit by five kamikaze planes and three bombs, but stayed afloat.

1945

Of 112,962 Mainers who served in World War II, 2,551 died.

Forty-nine lives were lost when a mysterious explosion blew up a Navy ship off Cape Elizabeth.

Sixteen infants and a nurse were killed at Le Coste Baby Home in Auburn in Maine’s worst fire of the century.

Troley car service, begun in 1889, ended in Bangor.

“Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans” by Fannie Hardy Eckstrom of Brewer was published.

The white pine was adopted as the state tree by the legislature.

1946

The state’s first vocational technical institute was opend in Augusta.

Howland native Percy Spencer discovered the microwave oven when a chocolate bar melted in the Raytheon engineer’s pocket while he was testing a magnetron tube. Spencer, who quit school at age 12 to work in a Howland spool mill, became senior vice president of Raytheon, winning honorary doctorates from the University of Massachusetts and Nasson College.

1947

Disastrous wildfires in October burned 205,678 acres, killed 16 people, left 2,500 homeless, and leveled or practically wiped out nine towns.

Loring Air Force Base was established at Limestone.

Clyde Sukeforth of Washington, Maine, served as interim manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers during Jackie Robinson’s first game, having helped recruit Robinson and served as his manager in the minor leagues.

The Maine Turnpike was completed to South Portland.

Sen. Wallace H. White Jr., a republican from Auburn, served as U.S. Senate majority leader in the 80th Congress.

St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor was established.

1948

Margaret Chase Smith became the first Republican woman elected to the U.S. Senate, the first to serve in both the House and Senate, and the first woman of any party elected to the Senate without first being appointed to complete another’s term.

Andrew Wyeth painted “Christina’s World,” set in Cushing. It is among the most famous American works of art of the 20th century.

The first commercially successful chain saw in the United States was demonstrated at a logging conference on Sebago Lake.

1949

A severe polio epidemic struck in the summer, lasting into the fall.

1950-1959 …

1950

The number of Maine farms had decreased from 39,000 to 30,000 since 1929, although acreage had dropped by only 10 percent.

The last large-scale cod salting operations in Maine were closed, marking the end of the 500-year-old industry that helped stimulate exploration of the New World.

After several years of low rainfall, Bangor Hydro made a commitment to fossil fuel power generation.

U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith delivered her “Declaration of Conscience” speech, attacking Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s “Red baiting” tactics.

The first trans-Atlantic nonstop jet flight from east to west was made in a single-engine F-84E Republic Thunderjet between Manston, England, and Loring Air Force Base in Limestone in 10 hours 1 minute. In 1953, two Boeing B-47 Stratojets made the trip nonstop between Limestone and Fairfield, England, in 5 hours 38 minutes.

1951

Great Northern Paper Co.’s holdings in Maine peaked at 2.3 million acres, making it Maine’s largest landowner.

The first state sales tax was enacted at 2 percent.

1952

The children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” by Brooklin resident E.B. White was published.

1953

WABI-TV in Bangor became the state’s first television station.

Dr. Josephine Neal, Belmont native and former Columbia University medical professor, received the Elizabeth Blackwell Citation of the New York Infirmary for being “one of the great figures in medicine and public health, particularly in the diagnosis, treatment and control of infectious diseases of the nervous system.”

Husson College in Bangor began offering four-year baccalaureate degrees.

1954

Edmund Muskie was elected governor, reinvigorating the Democratic Party. It was the beginning of a sea change in Maine politics.

Penobscot River pollution ended the tradition of sending the year’s first salmon catch to the White House. A tradition started in 1912, it would be resumed in the 1970s after river cleanup.

Down East magazine published its first issue.

“Living the Good Life” by Scott and Helen Nearing was published, contributing to the back-to-the-earth movement beginning in the next decade.

1955

Of 40,099 Mainers who served in the Korean War, 233 died.

With the close of textile mills and a crash in potato prices, many Franco-Americans headed for central Connecticut where factory jobs were plentiful.

The Maine Turnpike was completed to Augusta.

1956

The first U.S. atomic submarine was built at the Kittery-Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

The Bangor Daily Commercial ceased publication.

1957

The Sinclair Act encouraged towns to consolidate into school administrative districts, leading to the closing of many small high schools.

Maine moved Election Day from September to November as in the rest of the nation.

The Great Imposter, Ferdinand Demara, was arrested on North Haven Island impersonating a schoolteacher.

Eastern Maine General Hospital passed a new policy “allowing husbands to remain with their wives in the Labor Room.”

1958

Edmund Muskie became the first Democrat ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Maine.

In the worst Maine motor vehicle crash, seven members of two families were killed when their car pulled in front of a tractor-trailer truck and was hit broadside on Labor Day weekend on Route 201 at Richmond Corner. One car passenger and the truck driver survived.

1959

Maine Medical Center in Portland offered the first open heart surgery in Maine.

Paul Bunyan statue was erected in Bangor.

1960-1969 …

1960

Maine Medical Center in Portland offered the first artificial kidney or renal dialysis in Maine.

The last passenger train left Bangor.

Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy campaigned for president in Bangor.

1961

The state set minimum professional standards for teachers, including a bachelor’s degree.

“Silent Spring” by longtime summer resident Rachel Carson was published. It played a major role in launching the modern environmental movement.

Composer Walter Piston, a Rockland native, won the second of two Pulitzer Prizes for his “Seventh Symphony.”

The Broadway Shopping Center, Bangor’s first shopping center, opened.

The Rev. Clarice H. Bowman, an ordained Methodist minister, became the first woman elected to the resident faculty in the 150-year history of Bangor Theological Seminary.

Maine’s foremost 20th century Franco-American novelist, Gerard Robichaud, published his first novel, “Papa Martel.” Written in English, it is set in a fictionalized Lewiston.

1962

Maine’s representation in the U.S. House dropped from three to two seats.

The greatest Maine snowfall in 24 hours was measured at 40 inches on Dec. 29-30 in Orono.

Telstar 1 satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The first transoceanic television program was transmitted the same day from Andover via the satellite to Europe. The first satellite telephone conversation was made the same day from Andover via Telstar 1 to Vice President Lyndon Johnson in Washington, D.C.

1963

Stearns High School of Millinocket defeated Morse High of Bath for the New England basketball championship.

The state’s first educational TV station, WMEB, went on the air.

Maine’s first McDonald’s opened in Portland.

1964

Federal urban renewal was approved by Bangor voters. Downtown demolition had already begun with the 1961 razing of Union Station.

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith became the first woman from a major party to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency. A Gallup Poll declared her one of the world’s four most admired women.

Democrats took control of both houses of the Legislature for the first time in the century, during President Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory. It was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won in Maine since 1912.

Interstate 95 was completed between Augusta and Bangor.

The University of Maine baseball team played in the College World Series in the first of seven appearances. John Winkin was the coach in six of them.

The Bath Iron Works-built destroyer Maddox, which fought in World War II and the Korean War, was involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which escalated the Vietnam War.

1965

Foreign factory ships caught record numbers of groundfish and herring in the Gulf of Maine in the mid-1960s, setting the stage for a dramatic dropoff in catches.

Fort Fairfield’s Dick Curless hit the top of the country music charts with “A Tombstone Every Mile,” about the isolated highway through Aroostook County’s Haynesville Woods.

Muhammad Ali, then named Cassius Clay, threw the famous phantom punch that knocked out Sonny Liston, successfully defending his world heavyweight boxing crown in Lewiston.

The last remaining passenger rail service in Maine was discontinued by the Boston and Maine Railroad.

The Dickey-Lincoln power project was proposed. The debate, which was over whether to build dams on the St. John River that would flood more than 140 square miles, lasted well over a decade before the idea was defeated.

1966

The Allagash Wilderness Waterway was established by the Legislature.

James Russell Wiggins, former Washington Post editor and U.N. ambassador, bought the Ellsworth American, and later became its editor.

1967

The debate over whether an oil refinery should be located on the Maine coast began with plans for Machiasport and ended in 1982 with rejection of a proposal for Eastport.

The first Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race was held.

Only 21 pairs of bald eagles were left in Maine.

Rockland High School graduate Louise Nevelson attended her first museum retrospective, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, wearing purple silk Japanese tapestries, a turquoise headdress and a boar’s teeth necklace.

1968

Bangor International Airport was established at the former Dow Air Force Base.

The University of Maine System was established, merging the University of Maine with several former teacher colleges.

“M.A.S.H.,” written by Dr. Richard Hornberger, a Waterville thoracic surgeon, was published. It became the basis for an acclaimed movie and a television show.

Sen. Edmund Muskie ran unsuccessfully for vice president on a ticket with Hubert Humphrey against Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Le Messager, one of the longest-running French-language newspapers in the country, ceased publication in Lewiston.

The Maine Times was founded in Topsham by John Cole and Peter Cox.

1969

Maine adopted an income tax.

The state passed a law requiring presidential electors to cast their ballots for presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the political party for which the electors were chosen.

The landlocked salmon was picked as the state fish by the Legislature.

1970-1979 …

1971

Maine Medical Center in Portland performed the first kidney transplant in Maine.

The Maine Human Rights Commission was founded.

Bowdoin was the last all-male college in Maine to admit women.

A modern building was constructed in Augusta for the Maine State Library, Archives and Museum.

1972

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith was defeated for re-election by William Hathaway.

Sen. Edmund Muskie was considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president. Sen. George McGovern won the nomination.

College of the Atlantic opened in Bar Harbor.

1973

“Carrie,” Stephen King’s first horror novel, was published, enabling the Hampden Academy teacher to write full time.

Harriet Putnam Henry became the first woman to preside in a Maine courtroom when she was appointed judge-at-large to the District Court System.

The Maine State Lottery was established.

1974

The Legislature made its first major effort to equalize school funding with a uniform property tax, later overturned by voters, and a major commitment to provide more money to tax-poor schools.

James B. Longley became Maine’s first independent governor, the only one in the nation.

A group affiliated with consumer advocate Ralph Nader published “The Paper Plantation,” a book attacking the paper companies that owned much of Maine.

1975

Of 48,000 Mainers who served in Vietnam, 332 died.

The Maine Executive Council was abolished after 155 years.

1976

The Rev. Benjamin Bubar Jr., longtime superintendent of the Christian Civic League of Maine, received 100,000 votes in 12 states as a presidential candidate for the Prohibition Party. He ran again in 1980.

Voters passed referendums to preserve the Bigelow Mountain range and to make drink containers returnable.

The last log drive in Maine was held on the Kennebec River.

Deborah Doane Dempsey, the first female graduate of a four-year maritime college, completed Maine Maritime Academy.

1977

The Fisheries Conservation and Management (Magnuson) Act extended U.S. fishing jurisdiction out to sea 200 miles. The U.S. fishing fleet expanded, and, after an initial comeback, the groundfish catch declined dramatically in a few years.

The Legislature banned billboards.

German brewery worker Erwin Kreutz became the most famous tourist in Maine when he got off a plane in Bangor thinking he was in San Francisco. Kreutz became an instant celebrity, meeting the governor, dining with the Chamber of Commerce, and receiving honorary membership in the Penobscot Nation among other achievements. The next year he returned to Bangor to cut the ribbon at the new Bangor Mall.

1978

The University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine opened in Biddeford.

President Jimmy Carter hosted a “town meeting” at the Bangor Auditorium.

The Bangor Mall opened, spelling the decline of the downtown shopping district.

The first trans-Atlantic balloon flight began in Presque Isle and ended five days later in France.

Ricker College in Houlton closed.

1979

The second-worst air disaster in Maine history occurred when a Downeast Airlines flight crashed in rain and fog near Owls Head Regional Airport, killing 17 people.

1980-1989 …

1980

The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act was passed by Congress. The Penobscot Nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Houlton Band of Maliseets agreed to extinguish claim to 12.5 million acres in return for money to buy and and for other purposes. The agreement included federal benefits and limited self-governing authority.

A major drive by electric utilities to reduce oil dependency by increasing generation from small wood-burning and hydropower producers began.

Sen. Edmund Muskie resigned to become secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter. George Mitchell was appointed to fill Muskie’s fourth Senate term.

George Snell of The Jackson Laboratory and two other scientists shared the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Fueled by the back-to-the-earth movement, population growth of 13.2 percent in the 1970s exceeded the national average for the first time since 1840.

Since the low point in 1919, the volume of standing timber in Maine’s woods had increased to 287.12 million cords, forest scientists estimated.

The Legislature revived moose hunting after a gap of 45 years.

Stephen and Tabitha King, author-philanthropists, purchased a West Broadway mansion in Bangor.

Northeast Harbor resident Marguerite Yourcenar, author of the historical novel “Memoirs of Hadrian,” became the first woman elected to the French Academy.

1981

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled the state owned the cutting rights on 400,000 acres of public lands. Paper companies settled out of court with land exchanges, leaving Maine the owner of three mountain ranges and miles of frontage on remote water bodies.

Constance Carlson became the first female president of a University of Maine System campus, at UM-Presque Isle.

Interstate 95 with four lanes was completed to Houlton.

1982

Union membership in Maine peaked at 84,489 from a low of fewer than 6,000 in the mid-1920s. It was 81,935 in 1999.

1983

The new Payson wing of the Portland Museum of Art opened its doors. Maine’s first noncollege art museum (1911) now had the physical space necessary to be a collecting institution of national status.

The last hand-cranked telephone system in the United States ended service in Bryant Pond.

1984

The first AIDS case was reported in Maine.

Joan Benoit Samuelson of Freeport won the gold medal in the women’s marathon in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

The World Court divided the Gulf of Maine, placing the “northeast peak,” an area fished by Americans for 200 years, under Canadian jurisdiction.

Charlie Howard, an avowed homosexual, drowned after being thrown off a bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream in downtown Bangor by teen-agers. His death fed a national debate about gay bashing, and became a symbol for the gay rights movement.

1985

“The Beans of Egypt, Maine” by Carolyn Chute was published. The author ripped away romantic notions about noble Yankees and hardscrabble farms and revealed underemployed Maine men and women in a hopeless time and place.

The drinking age was raised to 21.

Freese’s department store closed in downtown Bangor, a victim of competition from shopping malls.

1986

The Maine Vocational Technical Institute System was established with an independent board of trustees. Later, it was renamed the Maine Technical College System.

1987

Open-heart surgery was first performed at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

A bitter strike against International Paper in Jay, the longest walkout in Maine history, was considered a major blow to organized labor, with hundreds of workers losing their jobs. Hundreds more had lost their jobs the year before during a three-month strike against Boise Cascade in Rumford.

The worst flooding of the century affected the area from York to Penobscot counties.

1988

Sen. George Mitchell was elected U.S. Senate majority leader.

A lobstering boom began with catches exceeding 30 million pounds, including a record 46.9 million pounds in 1997. Many scientists feared the collapse of the industry.

In the worst mass murder in eastern Maine, Earl Losier Jr. of Bangor shot and killed his brother, his brother’s girlfriend and her two brothers because they wouldn’t turn down loud music. Losier was sentenced to four life sentences. Two other quadruple murders have occurred in Maine, one in Ogunquit in 1980 and the other in a Portland arson in 1992.

Karen Wood, mother of twin daughters, was shot and killed by a hunter in her back yard in Hermon, touching off a national debate about the rights and responsbilities of hunters.

1989

The Bangor Daily News celebrated its 100th year of publication.

The Lewiston Evening Journal ceased publication.

In Bell vs. Town of Wells, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court held that although the public has the right to fish and fowl and to navigate between the high- and low-tide marks of beaches, it has no right to engage in general recreation and can be excluded by the upland owners.

1990-1999 …

1990

The population was 1.2 million.

Residents voted to allow all stores to do business on Sundays.

Carl “Stump” Merrill of Brunswick was named manager of the New York Yankees.

1991

State government shut down in July for more than two weeks as lawmakers and Gov. John McKernan battled over the Workers’ Compensation law.

Cindy Blodgett of Lawrence High School in Fairfield emerged on the girls basketball scene to lead her school to the first of four straight state titles, going on to lead the University of Maine to four straight appearances in the NCAA tourney. After graduation, she played in the Women’s NBA.

Old Town native Dick MacPherson was named head coach of the New England Patriots.

The Portland Evening Express ceased publication.

1992

Maine, the country’s largest wild blueberry grower, produced 84.2 million pounds, the largest crop of the century.

The Aroostook Band of Micmacs, led by Mary Philbrook, received federal recognition. It required an amendment to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980.

Joey Gamache Jr. of Lewiston won the World Boxing Association’s lightweight championship.

Voters in the presidential election gave independent presidential candidate H. Ross Perot 30 percent of their votes, the highest percentage of any state in the country.

Acadia Hospital, a 100-bed psychiatric facility owned by Eastern Maine Healthcare, opened in Bangor.

1993

Maine voters were the first in the nation to pass term limits for state legislators.

The University of Maine hockey team won the national Division I NCAA title. It repeated the feat in 1999.

After a meteoric rise, sea urchins and aquaculture-raised salmon tied for second place in monetary value in the state’s fishery.

1994

Loring Air Force Base closed in Limestone with the loss of 5,000 military and civilian jobs, contributing to the further decline of population in Aroostook County.

Biddeford Internet, the state’s first independent Internet service provider, was founded.

1996

Maine became the second state represented in the U.S. Senate by two women, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

The greatest rainfall in a 24-hour period in Maine was measured at 13.32 inches on Oct. 20-21 in Portland.

Mark Plummer of Manchester won his ninth Maine Amateur Golf Championship.

1997

Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Station, which opened in 1972 in Wiscasset and produced about a quarter of the state’s power, closed because of a lack of competitiveness. In the 1980s, voters rejected three referendums to shut the plant down.

A large number of fisheries – including groundfish, clams and sea urchins – were in crisis as fishery officials realized new management techniques needed to be tried.

Sen. William Cohen was appointed U.S. secretary of defense.

Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, became the first woman to serve as speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.

The rock band Phish attracted 70,000 fans to the old Loring Air Force Base in Limestone. A second concert in 1998 attracted fewer people.

1998

A huge ice storm in January knocked out electric power in much of the state for a week or more.

The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland celebrated its 50th year by opening the new Center for the Wyeth Family in Maine.

The Seattle Times Co., under the name Blethan Maine Newspapers, bought the Guy Gannett newspapers in Portland, Augusta and Waterville.

Emergency helicopter service was inaugurated at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

1999

Under a new state energy deregulation law due to take effect in 2000, Maine power companies sold off generating facilities. Meanwhile, a natural gas pipeline from Nova Scotia was built the length of the state, and several gas-fired power plants were planned.

The number of farms had decreased from 30,000 in 1950 to 7,000.

The Edwards Dam in Augusta was remoed. It was the first dam in the nation ordered destroyed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission because its environmental drawbacks outweighed its economic advantages.

About 210 pairs of bald eagles livedin Maine, as President Clinton proposed taking them off the federal endangered species list.

With a new addition, Colby College had the largest art museum in the state.

About “Maine Diary” Project editor: Wayne E. Reilly Library director: Charlie Campo Design: Karen Zimmermann

Credits: We asked historians and other experts to contribute items to our time line. They included: agriculture, Richard Condon; arts, William and Debra Barry; Bangor history, Dick Shaw; crime, Stephen McCausland, Renee Ordway; education, John Skehan, Robert Cobb; energy, Richard C. Hill, Carroll Lee; environment, Richard Judd; forests, David Smith, Robert Frank; Franco-American history, C. Stewart Doty; labor, Charles Scontras; fishing, Jim Acheson; government and politics, Kenneth Palmer; law, Cabanne Howard; media, Tom McCord; medicine, Dr. Richard Kahn, Ann Trainor; military history, Dick Shaw; religion, Tom McCord; science and technology, Howard Segal, David Smith; shipbuilding, Nathan Lipfert; sports, Joe McLaughlin; tourism and transportation, Joel Eastman; weather, August Sardinha; women’s history, Mazie Hough, Tina Roberts, Carol Toner, Phyllis Vonherlich, Eileen Eagan, Muffy Eastman and Polly Kaufman.

Among the published sources consulted were “Famous First Facts” by Joseph Nathan Kane; “An Insider’s Guide to Maine Politics” by Christian P. Potholm; “Maine Almanac” by Jim Brunelle; “Maine Almanac and Book of Lists” edited by James S. Henderson; “Maine, the Pine Tree State: From Prehistory to the Present,” edited by Richard W. Judd, Edwin A. Churchill and Joel W. Eastman; “Magnificent Mainers” by Jeff Hollingsworth; “Woodsmen and Whigs: Historic Images of Bangor, Maine” by Abigail Ewing Zelz and Marilyn Zoidis; and “So You Think You Know Maine” by Neil Rolde.

Photo Credits: Sources for photographs not credited in the text: Sarah Orne Jewett (Courtesy of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities); Lombard log hauler (Courtesy of the Maine Folklife Center); Lillian Nordica (Courtesy of the Nordica Museum); Cadillac Mountain (Courtesy of Raymond Strout); Del Bissonette (Courtesy of the Maine Sports Hall of Fame); An early postcard celebrates family farming (Courtesy of the University of Maine Special Collections and Stockholm Historical Society); William Carrigan (Courtesy of the Maine Sports Hall of Fame); The Stanley brothers and their steamer (Courtesy of the Stanley Museum); The Ranger (Courtesy of the Maine Maritime Museum); E.B. White (Courtesy of Dick Shaw); The Great Imposter (AP Photo); The Peirce Memorial, Rudy Valee, Clyde Sukeforth, John F. Kennedy in Bangor, Benjamin Bubar, Last Ricker College graduation, Erwin Kreutz, Moose hunters, Louise Nevelson, Maine Indians settled their land dispute with the state in 1980, Cindy Blodgett, Mary Philbrook, UM champion hockey team, Elizabeth Mitchell (From the collection of the Bangor Daily News)

Coming Up

Look for the next installment in the coming weeks: Photographs of the Year