Bangoreans turned out 1,000 strong to launch the great roller-skating craze of 1905. On a chilly May evening, most sat as spectators while a courageous few careened around a floor “smooth as polished glass” to martial music. Blazing electric lights illuminated the far corners of the cavernous Bangor Auditorium, where people were more used to hearing operatic arias than the clickety-clack of roller skates.

Built in 1897, the huge auditorium – not to be confused with the current one – had hosted lavish opera extravaganzas starring such internationally famous divas as Maine’s own Madame Nordica. Now, much to the surprise of some, the Bangor Daily News said the building was going to be, at least for the time being, New England’s biggest roller-skating rink.

L.D. Mathis, who ran a rink in Portland, promised a blazing sign would stretch across the front of the building “turning night into day,” and more electric lights would festoon the entrance. And soon there would be a new $500 floor installed.

While hundreds of spectators looked on that opening night, the Brewer Band set the tempo as a few dozen young men summoned the courage to try out the sport that had been dormant in the area for several years.

It was not until exactly 9:30 p.m. that the first young woman “tempted fate,” said the newspaper. “She was gowned in a neat-fitting dress of blue serge, wore her hair in an enormous pompadour, and skated with an easy grace.” Several other women followed, but most were content to sit in the balcony with their male companions either until it was proved that roller-skating was a ladylike pastime, or perhaps until they had a skating lesson or two.

The Bangor Auditorium sat near the corner of Main and Buck streets in front of where the current auditorium is located today. It had been built for the use of the Maine Music Festival, the apex of the Queen City’s musical history. At 175 feet long and 82 feet wide, the wooden, barnlike structure had a seating capacity of between 4,000 and 5,000.

Some people were taken aback at the idea that “Bangor’s cherished temple of music” would be used for roller -skating. The reintroduction of the sport in 1905, however, was a way to help pay the festival’s debts, a BDN story explained on June 17. “Money – that is the whole story. It was merely another instance of commercialism coming to the aid of art,” reported the newspaper.

As the spring progressed, the new rink began to sponsor races in which ambitious young men from all over the state competed for monetary awards. In the first such event, a 5-mile contest on June 9, William O’Brien of Portland defeated one Canning, no address given. Bangor’s hero, Jimmie Conners, placed third, while the fourth contestant, Fred Vesser of Houlton, fell down several times and dropped out. Later that month Conners defeated a field of nine other contestants.

It was hard to tell what Bangor liked better – roller-skating champs or opera stars. Late in July, the best attended race to date occurred. Fred O. Follis of Eastport defeated Portland’s O’Brien in the 3-mile contest. The paper described it as the largest crowd to attend an event at the auditorium since 1903 when Madame Schumann-Heink, the opera diva, sang at the Maine Festival. In August, O’Brien, who had moved to Bangor by then, defeated Follis to reclaim his title.

One of the grandest events of the season, the Great Masquerade Skating Carnival, occurred on Sept. 27. More than 1,000 spectators turned out to watch Indians, princesses, court jesters, cowboys, Mexicans, flower girls, queens, the Goddess of Liberty, and “all the funny characters made famous by the New York papers” circle the arena. Miss Mattie Bissette, attired as the Fencing Girl, took the first prize, a solid silver fruit dish, while Hiram Pelham won second, a silver smoking set, dressed as Louis XVI. A censor stood at the door to make sure no “objectionable characters” entered the rink.

Roller skating had existed in Bangor sporadically since the early 1880s, according to Donald J. King in his University of Maine master’s thesis on leisure time activities in the Queen City. Short-lived rinks had been opened at various times at City Hall, Norombega Hall and Union Hall. Marathon events, such as a 24-hour, 232-mile ordeal held one season at Union Hall, were introduced to boost attendance. The pastime also lent itself to team sports. During much of this period, roller polo teams with names such as the Norombegas and the Resolutes represented Bangor.

All these buildings – the old Bangor Auditorium, the old Norombega Hall (the early one where Norumbega Parkway is today), City Hall (at Hammond and Columbia streets) and Union Hall – are gone, the victims of fires or the wrecking ball. I could not visit any of these recreational mausoleums to imagine hearing the crowd’s roar and the rumble of wooden wheels echoing off the dingy walls. Of course, there are modern rinks, at least two in Bangor, but in my mind’s eye they couldn’t have equaled the hallowed spots where O’Brien, Follis, Conners and others made the floorboards sizzle once upon a time.

This was a sport, after all, that could turn a reporter into a poet. As one newspaper scribe wrote in the BDN a century ago: “Did you ever have on roller skates? Earth, sky and air appear to melt away; the blood runs fire in the veins; and then – and then if you are young and foolish it is just possible you may see more stars than ever the [Music] festival boasted in its palmiest days.”

Richard R. Shaw provided information for this column. Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.