Melville H. Andrews, the music store owner, had purchased one of the finest cars in Bangor for the driving season ahead. You could read all about it in the Bangor Daily News on March 18, 1907. His new Mark XLVIII, 28-hp four-cylinder Columbia touring car was equipped with “top and all accessories, clock, speedometer-odometer, shock-absorbers, extra tires, foot and robe rails and everything up-to-date.”

News about the auto craze was in the newspapers daily. It was rumored autos were so popular some people were taking desperate measures to buy them. A few Bangoreans even mortgaged their houses, claimed the “About Bangor” columnist in the Bangor Daily News on July 5. The columnist doubted estimates as high as 29 people, however.

Businesses such as John Mason & Son were clamoring to service the new motor machines. The company opened an automobile repair shop and an “automobile livery business” at its carriage factory on York Street, the Bangor Daily Commercial reported in its new “Automobilia” column on June 29.

The cost of fuel was just as controversial then as it is today. “One of the dopesters on the cost of operating machines with gasoline, kerosene and alcohol has summed up the situation,” reported the Commercial on May 23: “Cost of fuel per ton mile [equivalent to a ton of freight moved one mile] – gasoline, 1.69 cents; kerosene, 1.39 cents; alcohol, 4.48 cents. Miles per gallon – gasoline, 10.1; kerosene, 7.4; alcohol, 6.13.”

While the gasoline-powered engine was rapidly gaining dominance, one still could buy a steamer or an electric car. The Commercial reported on June 10 that the first electric car was seen in Bangor. A familiar measure was applied to test its usefulness: “It easily went up State Street hill and persons who saw the climb were much impressed with its hill-climbing ability,” reported the paper.

People complained about roads then as they do now, but they had a lot more to complain about. Most roads outside of town centers were terrible and sometimes dangerous or impassable. Good stretches of road were newsworthy. The best touring roads in the Bangor area were on the Brewer side of the river. A drive to Bucksport was a popular outing. Another popular run was out Essex Street to Pushaw Pond, said the Commercial on June 19.

But despite all the auto owners – and there were only a couple of thousand statewide and perhaps 100 or so in Bangor, according to various newspaper estimates – they were outnumbered by thousands of naysayers who saw automobiles as a threat to their way of life, even their lives.

A growing number of fatal accidents in other states were being reported in the newspapers. So far no one had been killed around Bangor. The first “serious accident” in the area was reported July 16 when Frank Sinclair of Orono was “run down and his left leg … broken by a big car that was as big as a mountain and travelling like a shadow,” according to the Bangor Daily News. This strange vehicle disappeared unidentified in a cloud of dust.

Most accidents in Maine, however, involved runaway horses spooked by passing automobiles. It was reported on July 22 in the Commercial that an unnamed Belfast “professional man” holding the reins of “a young and fiery steed of good pedigree” had leaped from his wagon and pulled out a revolver, bringing an autoist to a stop after he had refused to slow down.

Farmers were particularly upset by the “devil carts.” The Auburn Grange held a session titled “How to Protect Our Wives and Daughters from Automobiles” on Aug. 19 in an effort to come up with ways to make it safer for women to go out on the roads by themselves with horse-driven vehicles.

The Commercial strenuously advocated more regulations such as confining autoists to toll roads and imposing strict licensing standards. Anyone could drive, even inexperienced boys, the writer complained in an editorial on Aug. 20. The publisher of the paper, J.P. Bass, owned a summer cottage at Bar Harbor. His editorial stance sounded like he was taking the part of the summer people there who had convinced the town to take draconian measures.

Bar Harbor had banned automobiles on many important roads. The issue came to a head (one of many over the years) on Aug. 5, when Fordham C. Mahoney, a wealthy summer resident, was fined $1 for moving his auto over two sections of the forbidden Bay View Drive. The first section was navigated under tow by a horse. The second section was down Duck Brook Hill. The prosecution and defense could not agree whether the auto was pushed or it rolled down the hill by its own gravity. Mahoney’s attorney said the car was being stored at Hulls Cove and Mahoney had no intention of using it around town.

This trivial case generated a great deal of press. The Commercial, always on the lookout for ways to stop the devil carts, called it “a decisive victory.” The Bangor Daily News, which took a gentler view of the new machines, emphasized the technical nature of the ruling and the nominal fine.

Another driving season was winding down. In two or three months, most people would be putting their autos in storage for the winter. Slowly, however, the problems only imagined by farmers and early conservationists in 1907 would grow to massive proportions as the public’s unquenchable desire for more automobiles escalated in the years ahead.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net