AUGUSTA – “I do not own an automobile, and do not ever expect to,” Sen. Walter Plummer said during a State House debate. “I do own a cheap horse, and have a wife and three daughters who drive it. What is the result now? They do not dare to go out.”

The lawmaker from Lisbon spoke on the Senate floor as a debate marking the sunset of the horse-and-buggy era in Maine wound down 100 years ago. Maine was on the verge of adopting its first law requiring the registration of automobiles and licensing of those who operate them.

The centennial of legislation that affects every Mainer directly or indirectly is being marked by Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, whose office was designated from the start to administer Maine’s motor vehicle laws and still is trying to keep ahead of the times.

Paper forms and personal visits to Bureau of Motor Vehicle offices already are going the way of the horse and carriage as online registration and licensing services expand.

As of earlier this month, more than half of Mainers were able to renew their vehicle registrations online. Each month, more and more of the state’s 900,000 licensed drivers can renew their licenses on the Internet. Driving records and other services now are available to everyone online.

With threats of identity theft and terrorism looming, Dunlap has been appointed to a national panel that will develop minimum standards to increase reliability and security of driver’s licenses and ID cards.

At the same time, his office is involved in a $13 million upgrade of its computer system.

“Who would have thought 100 years ago that our number one issue would be construction of a new computer system?” asked Dunlap.

Certainly not Sen. Athill Irving.

During debate on Maine’s first registration and licensing law on March 22, 1905, the senator from Presque Isle dismissed the idea of reporting the make and model of automobiles as “superfluous, and of no importance whatever.”

Irving also objected to giving the secretary of state broad authority over motor vehicles, especially qualifying people to operate them.

“I wonder how many men in the state today, who are owners of automobiles, can submit convincing evidence to an expert of their qualification to run an automobile,” said Irving.

“The man who is an expert in the matter of the manipulation of an automobile should be an expert engineer,” added Irving, whose motion to spike the bill failed, allowing the passage of the state’s first motor vehicle law.

But other legislators saw an opportunity to make horseless-buggy operators, whose vehicles now would be identified by registration numbers, take more care not to spook horses they encountered along the road. Plummer stated his belief that “the man who owns a horse has some rights.”

“While a great many, and I may say most owners of automobiles do respect a team and are very careful, a great many do not,” Plummer told his fellow senators.

Maine’s first license plates were almost perfectly square pieces of enameled iron, with white letters over a bright red background and the single word “Maine” at the bottom. The style would keep until 1912, when the plates were widened and dark blue numbers were placed on a yellow background.

At first, the registration fee was $2 for life. But lawmakers changed their minds in 1911 when they decided that the state could make more money by issuing registrations annually, said Cathie Curtis, BMV director of vehicle services.

Lettering and designs changed regularly and a rainbow of different colors appeared on Maine plates through the years. Stamps of their manufacturers, including companies in Baltimore, St. Louis and Beaver Falls, Pa., appeared on the backs in the early years.

It wasn’t until 1936 that Maine’s plates were made in the state prison, a policy that continues seven decades later. At the same time, that familiar nickname “Vacationland” made its debut on the lower edge of the plates; the moniker sticks to this day.

Because of America’s need for metal during World War II, the Legislature decided not to issue new plates for 1943, making it the first year since 1911 that no new plate was issued. Starting in 1944, a lighter-gauge metal was used.

With all of the spent ammunition shells being melted down after the war, brass became cheaper and Maine plates were made out of that metal, according to a history compiled for the centennial by Angela Berry. In 1948, aluminum replaced brass because it was lighter and became cheaper.

A succession of other changes ensured that Mainers got multiple years of use out of their plates and granted special issues for antiques, lawmakers, veterans and other groups. Vanity plates featuring specially requested combinations of letters were authorized in 1961.

A plate reissue in 1987 caused a dustup when the Legislature approved a design with a red lobster in the background.

The depiction of Maine’s unofficial symbol was criticized by some as looking more like a squashed bug or crayfish than a lobster. Others criticized it as reflecting long-held stereotypes of coastal affluence.

“Letters pour in from people all around the state who demand to keep their old registration plates, and refuse to attach the new plates to their vehicles,” Berry recounts in her history. Legal battles over whether motorists could paint over their lobsters were waged in court.

The first appearance of Maine’s present chickadee plates in 1999 sparked a similar but smaller wave of protest.

“Again, letters pour in, this time from people who love the lobster and hate to see it replaced by the chickadee,” says Berry’s history. “Interestingly, some of those letters of protest come from the very same people who fought against the issuance of the lobster registration plates in the first place.”

Newly designed, special-issue lobster plates appeared in 2003.