Bank’s history better read as tale of Bangor

HERE FOR GENERATIONS: THE STORY OF A MAINE BANK AND ITS CITY, by Dean Lawrence Lunt, Islandport Press, Frenchboro, 334 pages, hardcover, $24.95.

Dr. Edmond Abbot. Caleb C. Cushing. Winthrop E. Hilton. Rebecca Graves.

Bangor Savings Bank’s first depositors expected their money to earn 4 percent interest as the bank founders advertised on its opening day May 5, 1852. It’s doubtful they ever dreamed their names would be published in a book on the bank’s history 150 years later in the 21st century.

Financial institutions and Bangor have changed dramatically since BSB opened its doors on an upper floor of the so-called Circular Building (located where Cormier’s Clothing operated for many years) in West Market Square. The original goal of the bank – to offer Maine’s working men and women the opportunity to save some of their hard-earned wages – still guides the officers who operate it today.

That is the treatise Frenchboro writer and publisher Dean Lawrence Lunt outlines in “Here for Generations.” BSB commissioned the former journalist to write the bank’s history for its 150th anniversary. Proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit the Bangor Savings Bank Foundation, the bank’s charitable arm.

The book is more than just a saga of the financial institution, however. “Here for Generations” is the history of the city from which it took its name. Filled with old photographs and intriguing sidebars, the volume would be an excellent addition to the library of anyone who calls the city home, even though its later sections especially include the blatant promotion of BSB and its services.

Much of the material, gathered from bank records, government reports, newspapers, magazines, history books and personal interviews, is fascinating and brings to life times long past. The sections on the bank’s specific history, however, are often dry and full of mind-numbering figures.

Slogging through paragraphs about BSB’s deposits, portfolio, assets and the percent invested in government bonds versus private investments is akin to crossing the city’s unpaved 19th century streets in mud season. The story of the “Great Fire of 1911” that left the bank and much of the city in rubble but left BSB’s vault, filled with more than $5 millions in securities, cash and other valuables, intact is riveting.

A glossary of banking terms and a timeline outlining major changes in the industry would have been helpful to readers unfamiliar with financial matters more complex than balancing a checkbook. A series of street maps of the downtown, showing pre- and post-fire years along with a detailed map of the results of urban renewal and the plans for the riverfront, would have helped to visually connect the past, present and future of the city’s downtown.

Well-indexed and finely bound and printed, “Here for Generations” is destined to become the quintessential reference book on Bangor. Undoubtedly, in another 50 years it will be pulled off dusty bookshelves to settle family disputes about the city’s past. Despite its few flaws, the book is a great gift from the bank to the people of the city it has served for 150 years.

Dean Lawrence Lunt will sign copies of the book from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 17, at BookMarc’s in Bangor. For more information, call 942-3206.