ROCKLAND – Celebrating its 216th birthday this week, the U.S. Coast Guard will be front and center of this year’s Maine Lobster Festival stage.

As part of Rockland’s effort to officially become a Coast Guard City, community leaders plan a birthday salute Friday to honor the service and its local units.

Maine Eastern Railroad is tipping its hat to the Coast Guard as well by offering active-duty personnel free passenger train rides during August.

On Wednesday, the women participating in the 2006 Maine Sea Goddess coronation will be escorted on stage by Coast Guard and Navy men – a tradition previously reserved for Navy sailors only.

The Coast Guard presence in Rockland consists of a small boat station, the 175-foot cutter Abbie Burgess, the 140-foot cutter Thunder Bay, and 65-foot cutter Tackle with a combined crew of 100 personnel.

Aug. 4, is usually celebrated as Coast Guard Day to honor the establishment on that day in 1790 of the Revenue Cutter Service, forebear of today’s Coast Guard, by the Treasury Department.

On that date, Congress authorized the building of a fleet of 10 cutters, whose responsibility was to be enforcement of the first tariff laws.

The Coast Guard has been continuously at sea since its inception, although the name Coast Guard didn’t come about until 1915 when the Revenue Cutter Service was merged with the Lifesaving Service.

The U.S. Lighthouse Service joined the Coast Guard in 1939, followed in 1946 by the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection.

Finally, in 1967, after 177 years in the Treasury Department, the Coast Guard was transferred to the newly formed Department of Transportation. On March 1, 2003, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Coast Guard became part of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

Coast Guard Day is primarily an internal activity for active-duty personnel, civilian members, reservists, retirees, auxiliary members and dependents, but it is recognized outside the service in places such as Grand Haven, Mich., also known as Coast Guard City USA.

At most Coast Guard units, the service’s birthday is recognized by holding family picnics for crew members and their families. And because of the schedule overlap with the Maine Lobster Festival, Coast Guard personnel here have traditionally celebrated the service’s birthday at a later date.

At 4 p.m. Friday, Rockland will honor the service during a ceremony in which the Coast Guard Color Guard will be led on the Lobster Festival stage by a bagpiper.

Maine Eastern Railroad has jumped onboard as well, with its own best wishes for the Coast Guard. The railroad is offering all active-duty Coast Guard personnel stationed in Maine free passage each Wednesday and Sunday during the month of August.

According to Gordon Page, director of passenger operations, Maine Eastern has a distinctive link to the Coast Guard. The railroad’s first-class passenger car is named after the person who is identified as the father of the Coast Guard, Alexander Hamilton.